Lufthansa cabin crew call for a new two-day strike in Germany

The Lufthansa cabin crew union has called a new two-day strike at two of Germany's busiest airports, Frankfurt and Munich.

This strike comes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and is the latest in a series of strikes that affected the German airline.

The union's announcement comes days after Lufthansa announced record profits for 2023.

Lufthansa said about 100,000 passengers were likely to be affected.

The union said that the strike will include all flights departing from Frankfurt Airport on Tuesday and all flights from Munich on Wednesday from 04:00 (03:00 GMT) to 23:00 (22:00 GMT) local time.

This will affect both Lufthansa and its short-haul, low-cost subsidiary CityLine. It is unclear whether Lufthansa's codeshare partners will also be affected.

The Independent Flight Attendants Organization (UFO) is demanding a 15% pay rise and inflation compensation pay of €3,000 ($3,280; £2,550) for its 18,000 members with Lufthansa and 1,000 Cityline members.

She said more than 96% of UFO members voted in favor of the strike.

Lufthansa announced on Thursday that its profits doubled in 2023 to €1.67 billion ($1.82 billion; £1.42 billion) compared to the previous year.

Cabin crews “should be able to build on this success,” said Joachim Vasquez Borger, UFO's chairman.

He added that the union “deeply regrets” taking this decision and asked passengers to “apologise” for any inconvenience caused by the strike.

However, Lufthansa's failure to reach an agreement with employees indicates that “management wants the situation to worsen, to the detriment of passengers,” a UFO negotiator said on Saturday.

About 200,000 passengers were affected by delays and cancellations after Lufthansa ground staff went on strike in Germany on Thursday and Friday.

The Ver.di union, which led the strike, said its 25,000 ground staff wanted a 12.5% ​​pay rise, or at least 500 extra euros per month, plus an inflation-compensating bonus.

Lufthansa said it had offered a wage increase of at least 10%, but Verdi said the offer was not enough, and that ground staff were barely earning the minimum wage despite the airline's high profits.