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Lufthansa pilots' strike to continue on Wednesday

Xinhua, September 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

A union representing German airline Lufthansa's pilots announced on Monday evening that it had called for pilots of the airline's short and medium-haul flights to strike on Wednesday, joining their colleagues flying long-haul and cargo flights who would walk out on Tuesday.

The union, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), announced that pilots of all Lufthansa short and medium-haul flights leaving from Germany would walk out on Wednesday from 00:01 (2201 GMT Tuesday) to 23:59 (2159 GMT).

Flights operated by Lufthansa's budget subsidiary Germanwings would also be affected.

Earlier on Monday, the union announced that pilots of Lufthansa's cargo and long-haul service would strike from 8:00 in the morning (0600 GMT) to 23:59 (2159 GMT) on Tuesday.

Lufthansa said it would only be able to operate 90 out of about 270 planned long-haul flights on Tuesday.

The latest industrial action, the 13th one since April 2014, was announced following a recent failure of talks last week over a long-lasting dispute over retirement scheme between pilots and the company.

Lufthansa, facing competition from budget airlines, is struggling to cut operating costs. It wishes to scrap a retirement arrangement under which pilots retire at 55 and receive 60 percent of their salary until they reach the statutory retirement age of 65.

VC said the latest negotiations last week made no progress despite "far-reaching concessions" from pilots which include accepting an increasing of retirement age to 60. Endit