Wednesday to Friday. Due to the strike announced by the pilot’s union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings have canceled about 3,800 flights on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. During the three day walkout of the cockpit crew only about 500 Lufthansa short and long haul flights will be operated.
Flight cancellations on such a massive scale will affect a total of 425,000 passengers. Lufthansa will inform all passengers who have registered their contact details in their booking or in their Miles & More profile about flight changes via text message and email. Most of the remaining domestic and European flights will be flown by the daughter companies Eurowings and Lufthansa Cityline, whose pilots are not participating in the walkout.
The pilots of the daughter companies Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, Lufthansa CityLine and Air Dolomiti as well as the pilots of Brussels Airlines will not participate in the strike. Where possible, these companies will use larger planes on routes from and to Germany in order to bring as many rebooked Lufthansa passengers as possible to their destinations.
Additionally, Lufthansa will re-book affected passengers on other airlines and in cooperation with German Railways (Deutsche Bahn) will provide train tickets on domestic routes. Airline tickets can be exchanged for a train ticket at automated check-ins or on the Internet.
Lufthansa is preparing a number of actions to minimize the impact, as far as possible, on its passengers. For example, in Frankfurt and Munich additional employees will be in the terminal to take care of passengers. Waiting passengers will be taken care of as well as possible there. In the Lufthansa service centers, capacities were already significantly increased. Passengers are requested to visit www.lufthansa.com/xx/en/My-Bookings and check the status of their flight before leaving for the airport.
In total, a three-day pilot strike would alone have for Lufthansa German Airlines a negative impact on profit in the range of tens of millions of euros. The announcement alone has already caused significant damages since passengers have already rebooked flights and logistic customers have made arrangements with other cargo airlines to secure the transport of their goods.
