German airline Lufthansa to cancel flights over workers strike

German airline Lufthansa has decided to cancel hundreds of flights after workers of the company announced plans for another one-day strike over pay and working conditions.

On Wednesday, Germany’s largest airline said on its website that “Due to announced strikes of Lufthansa staff at the airports Frankfurt, Munich, Duesseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne as well as several other locations on March 21, between 5:00 a.m. and midday (0400-1100 GMT), Lufthansa will cancel most of its domestic and short-haul flights.”
Earlier in the day, German union Verdi said that it had called on 33,000 employees at the flagship airline to walk off their jobs in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and other airports on Thursday.
Verdi further said Lufthansa’s operations in Frankfurt and Hamburg would be most affected by the walkout ahead of the next round of wage talks scheduled to be held on Friday.
Lufthansa has said it wants to freeze wages and ask employees to work one hour more per week in an effort to compete with its rivals. Verdi, however, has slammed the move as “wholly unacceptable.”
In January, the German union called for a similar strike which stranded many passengers at the country’s Hamburg Airport.
Also in September 2012, Lufthansa grounded half of its scheduled flights due to a 24-hour strike called by Verdi.
Lufthansa is Europe’s largest airline in terms of fleet size and the overall number of passengers it transports.