Lufthansa Cancels 800 Friday Flights, Including In St. Louis, Due To Pilots' Strike  The union Vereinigung Cockpit said Thursday that ...

Lufthansa Cancels 800 Friday Flights, Including In St. Louis, Due To Pilots' Strike

 The union Vereinigung Cockpit said Thursday that Lufthansa didn't improve on their last offer, so pilots had to go on strike to get what they wanted. Lufthansa, a German airline, said that it will cancel almost all passenger and cargo flights on Friday because the pilots are going on strike. It said that the flights will not leave from Frankfurt and Munich, which are its two biggest hubs.

Lufthansa pilots will walk off the job, their union said early Thursday. This is because management turned down their request for a pay raise. Lufthansa said that about 800 flights would be canceled, which will affect a lot of people who are coming back from vacation at the end of the summer. It said that the low-cost airline Eurowings would not be affected.

The airline said it was doing everything it could to lessen the effects of the pilots' strike on Friday, but it couldn't say for sure that some flights wouldn't be canceled or delayed over the weekend. The union Vereinigung Cockpit said Thursday that Lufthansa didn't improve on their last offer, so pilots had to go on strike to get what they wanted.

Lufthansa said that the company had offered a one-time raise of 900 euros ($900), which would be a 5% raise for experienced pilots and an 18% raise for those just starting out. The union had asked for a 5.5% raise this year and an automatic raise in 2023 that would be more than inflation.

Also, pilots want to change how they get paid and when they can take time off. The airline said that this would raise its staffing costs by about 40%, or about 900 million euros over two years. The Lufthansa executive board member in charge of human resources, Michael Niggemann, told Reuters that he didn't understand why the strike was happening and defended the airline's "very good and socially balanced" offer.

Strikes and a lack of staff have already caused Lufthansa and other airlines to cancel thousands of flights this summer and cause hours-long lines at major airports, which is frustrating for people who want to travel after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Security workers and people who work on the ground had already gone on strike this year over pay.