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Lufthansa faces week-long strike from Friday

Xinhua, November 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

German airline Lufthansa's cabin crew union announced on Thursday that its members will start a week-long strike on Friday after the latest negotiations over a labour dispute failed.

The strike would start on Friday afternoon, said the UFO union in a statement. It will announce further details about the walkout on Friday morning.

Earlier this week, the union threatened that the strike would last until Nov. 13, should Lufthansa fail to accept the union's latest offer by Thursday afternoon.

The last-minute negotiations broke down on Thursday. Lufthansa said it had agreed to all the demands made by the union with regard to cabin crew members' retirement benefits, but its latest offer was rejected by the union.

The carrier said it was unable to arrange alternative flight plans due to lack of details about the strike. It expected the strike's effects on passengers to be severe and said it was making efforts to limit the effects.

Lufthansa was in disputes with different labor unions as the carrier was struggling to cut its operating costs in order to compete with budget airlines.

Since April 2014, Lufthansa's pilots have walked out for 13 times that cost the company over 300 million euros (about 326.3 million U.S. dollars). Over 1000 Lufthansa flights were canceled in September due to the latest pilots' strike. Endit