Thousands of passengers stranded over Lufthansa cabin crew strike

PanARMENIAN.Net - A strike by Lufthansa cabin crew disrupted hundreds of flights on Friday, Aug 31, stranding thousands of passengers who faced further delays over a busy holiday travel weekend from a rolling series of stoppages about pay and cost cuts, Reuters reports.

Germany's biggest airline said it cancelled most of the 360 scheduled arrivals and departures at its Frankfurt hub during Friday's eight-hour strike which followed the breakdown of 13 months of talks with the trade union UFO.

UFO, which represents around two-thirds of Lufthansa's 19,000 flight attendants, did not rule out further stoppages over the weekend and said it could call for industrial action at other airports "today or tomorrow".

"It depends a lot on what Lufthansa's response is," UFO head Nicoley Baublies told Bayerischen Rundfunk radio, warning the airline not to pressure workers to break the strike.

The stoppages were initially focused on flights to and from Frankfurt, Germany's largest airport, but might affect the airline's wider European and global network and could cost it millions of euros a day in lost revenue.

Lufthansa said it would try to place passengers on trains and alternative flights.

"The call to strike action may lead to unscheduled flight delays and cancellations at Lufthansa. Long-haul flights are the uppermost priority and, wherever possible, should not be cancelled. Nevertheless, delays must be anticipated," Lufthansa said in a message to passengers on its website.