Off the wire
• Feature: To get together, Palestinian lovers struggle with Israeli constrains  • Urgent: Police use water cannons to disperse protesters outside Parliament  • Bank of England forecasts strong growth, weaker inflation  • Commentary: Europe-U.S. divergence still hurts prospect of solving Ukraine crisis despite ceasefire deal  • U.S. requested WTO consultations with China over alleged export-contingent subsidies  • News Analysis: Cairo-Moscow nuclear deal vital for Egypt's development  • Ghana rises 12 places in latest FIFA rankings  • Urgent: Dozens feared killed in Nigeria market explosion: witnesses  • ATP Rotterdam results  • WTA Diamond Games results  
You are here: 　 Home

Pilots strike forces Germanwings to cancel over 350 flights

Xinhua, February 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lufthansa's budget airline Germanwings said on Thursday that over 350 flights had been cancelled due to a two-day strike of pilots.

Most of the affected flights were scheduled to connect the German airports of Berlin, Cologne/Bonn, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart with domestic and some European destinations.

Germanwings said over 60 percent of its 900 scheduled flights on Thursday and Friday would operate normally during the strike period. It advised passengers to check their flight status before starting their journeys.

According to Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), the German pilots' trade union, the walkout started on Thursday and would last until Friday midnight.

The union had organized several pilots' strikes last year in a bid to press Lufthansa to bow in a dispute over pilots' retirement benefits.

Lufthansa plans to scrap a current scheme allowing pilots to retire early at 55 and receive up to 60 percent of their salary until normal pension starts at age 65.

The VC union wants Lufthansa to continue this scheme, but its proposal was rejected by Lufthansa which is trying to cut costs in order to compete with budget airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet. Endit