Passengers booked on Lufthansa airlines are bracing for a tough time later this week, as the German cabin crew union UFO has urged the airlines' cabin crew to stage a two-day strike. The strike is being called demanding better pay and conditions.
According to UFO, the 48-hour strike will be held between 2300 GMT on November 6 and November 8. All passengers flying in Lufthansa from Germany are likely to be affected by the strike. All flights departing and arriving into Germany are likely to get delayed or cancelled owing to the upcoming strike. This might see severe flight disruptions across Asia, the US and Europe.
The news comes after a similar strike was called off last month by Lufthansa's cabin crew. Lufthansa is Germany's largest airline operator and has been embroiled in a major dispute with its cabin crew over pay.
Daniel Flohr, deputy chairman of the UFO cabin crew union, said that the airlines' ongoing refusal to negotiate with the union was to be blamed for this unavoidable strike that might lead to thousands of passengers flying on Lufthansa being stranded at different airports.
UFO had recently staged a 24-hour warning strike on October 20 involving four smaller Lufthansa subsidiaries that saw quite a large number of flights getting cancelled. The dispute between UFO and Lufthansa has been going on for a long time.
Although the airlines gave a 2% pay hike to its cabin crew following the October 20 warning strike, it has yet to make any further move. UFO urged the airline officials to immediately come back to the negotiation table to avoid further strikes in the short term.
Lufthansa, on the other hand, calls the strike completely illegal and believes that UFO is not entitled to represent its staff. The airline had also slammed UFO's previous strike as illegal. The company said that it has condemned the upcoming strike and has already challenged UFO's status in court. Lufthansa is also looking at a legal action that it could take to halt the strike.
There has been a major dispute going on between UFO and Lufthansa in court for a long time now. Besides payment of cabin crew, UFO has also been fighting with the aviation major in court over its legal status. However, UFO has also apologized to all passengers flying on Lufthansa on these two days for the inconvenience to be suffered owing to the "unavoidable strike".
