Lufthansa pilots strike to extend into third day, affect Sofia flights

For a third day running, the industrial action by German pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit will result in the cancellation of five Sofia flights on November 25.

As on the previous two days, these would be three flights bound for Munich and two for Frankfurt, with the corresponding flights in the opposite direction also scrapped.

Initially, the strike was scheduled for November 23 alone, but the pilots union decided to extend it to November 24 after two courts rejected the airline’s attempts to block the industrial action, reports in international media said. In total, Lufthansa had to cancel a quarter of its flights on each day, or about 1800 flights combined, affecting 215 000 passengers.

On November 25, the strike is set to affect all continental routes from Germany, but the flights operated by Lufthansa Group airlines Germanwings, Eurowings, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, SWISS and Brussels Airlines would remain again unaffected.

Lufthansa said it was apologising for the disruption caused by the strike and was introducing a special flight schedule on November 24-25 to ensure “almost all intercontinental flights on November 25” would go ahead as scheduled.

The strike is the result of a long-standing dispute between Lufthansa and the union over pay rises, which has disrupted the airline’s operations repeatedly over the past year.

(Photo: Hermann Rohrmeier)

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