Pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) has now called for a strike by its members this Saturday as well.
The walkouts have been announced for Saturday, 26 November, from 00:01 to 23:59. All long-haul flights leaving Germany are affected.
In an interview for the in-house news portal, Klaus Froese, CEO Lufthansa Hub Frankfurt, and an A320 captain, addressed all the colleagues and pilots at Lufthansa today:
“The immense amount of built-up pressure decreases the available courses of action for solving the problem instead of increasing them. This goes against the nature of work in the cockpit. (…) I get the sense that the strikes are not based on a structured decision making process; they seem to be driven by emotion.”
Lufthansa is working to make sure that the flight schedule on short- and medium-haul routes will largely operate as planned. Individual flights within Germany and Europe may be cancelled as a result of the previous days’ strikes. A special flight schedule for Saturday’s long-haul flights will be finalized by noon tomorrow. Lufthansa plans to operate a few long-haul flights in spite of the strike. Over 315,000 passengers have been affected by 2,618 flight cancellations over the first three days of the strike.
The Group airlines Eurowings, Germanwings, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Air Dolomiti and Brussels Airlines are not affected by the strike. The pilots of Lufthansa Cargo have also not been called on to join this strike. Flights to and from Germany that are operated by Group airlines are operating as scheduled.