Lufthansa Strike Update: Around 1,300 Flights Cancelled

Lufthansa is cancelling over 1,000 flights scheduled over the next two days due strike by the German cabin crew union UFO, which began at midnight on Wednesday and will last until midnight on Friday.

Somewhere around 180,000 passengers on Lufthansa flights are expected to be impacted by the cancellations.

Lufthansa said it was forced to ground 700 flights on Thursday and some 600 on Friday, with a large proportion of planes halted in the Germany’s busiest transport hubs at Frankfurt and Munich. 

Flights by Lufthansa’s other airlines including Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines are not affected, the airline said.

Lufthansa provided a new, updated schedule on its website Wednesday. After experiencing “technical difficulties” due to high demand, the website is working again as of Thursday morning.

Lufthansa is offering all passengers with a booked flight through Frankfurt or Munich on Thursday and Friday a fee waiver for rebooking a new flight within the next 10 days. Lufthansa is also offering passengers who have flights cancelled outside of Frankfurt and Munich the ability to rebook free of charge on another flight.

Passengers on domestic flights can exchange tickets for a Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) train ticket free of charge.

The UFO union is striking because of a dispute over pay and pensions, and the union’s legal status. Lufthansa has strongly condemned the strike “in the strongest possible terms.”