Germany’s largest air carrier Lufthansa had to cancel about 300 flights on Tuesday as its flight attendants went on strike in the country’s major airports, the company said on its Web site.
The strike will last from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. local time (03:00-11:00 GMT) in Berlin’s Tegel Airport, from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. local time (04:00-12:00 GMT) in Frankfurt and from 1:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (11:00-22:00 GMT) in Munich.
The consecutive strategy is intended to paralyze air traffic in Germany for more than 12 hours. Flight delays are expected until Wednesday afternoon.
Flight attendants demand a 5-percent increase in wages. Negotiations between Germany’s flight attendant union UFO and the employer have not been successful as of yet.
UFO threatened to organize indefinite strikes if the demands are not met.
Because of the financial crunch, Lufthansa plans to lay off 3,500 employees and economize 1.5 billion euros over the next three years. In order to reduce its costs Lufthansa plans to reform its subsidiary airline Germanwings and partially move there Lufthansa employees by paying them lower wages.
