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Lufthansa has cancelled about 300 flights as cabin staff staged another day of industrial action at three of Germany's biggest airports.

Strike action called by the UFO union was under way at Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin airports.

Lufthansa cancelled short and medium-haul flights but also services to and from Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Beijing and Mexico City.

UFO and Lufthansa have been in dispute over pay and working conditions.

Workers held a day-long strike last Friday. The UFO union is seeking a pay increase of 5% for cabin staff for 15 months starting from January this year. The union said there had been no pay increases for three years.

It also wants guarantees that Lufthansa will not outsource jobs and use more temporary workers, as it has done in Berlin.

Lufthansa's latest offer was for a pay increase of about 3.5%.

The airline is undergoing a 1.5bn euro (£1.19bn) cost-cutting programme to offset rising fuel costs and tackle competition from low-cost and Gulf carriers.

It posted a 24% drop in second-quarter earnings to 229m euros from a year earlier. In May, Lufthansa announced it would axe 3,500 office jobs.

Lufthansa has about 19,000 cabin crew and the UFO union represents about two-thirds of them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19473429

Typical Lufthansa. Unfortunately they don't realise how lucky they are. 3.5% payrise, having had pay rises every year is a fantastic offer considering the current climate in the industry. To put it into perspective, I work for the other big German Airline having been merged in from LTU. We had one pay rise of 1.5% in my first year. Since then nothing for the last six years. We have all just had an enforced shift pattern change that basically means I am taking a net pay cut of 300 Euros per month, on top of which I actually have to go to work for 19 more days per year.

In Germany in the last six years diesel has gone up from 90 cents per litre to 1.50 per litre. Unleaded is about 1.70 a litre at the moment. Everything has gone up drastically, and I know it is the same in the UK, but the reality is that I have worked out that financially I am close to 30 percent worse off than I was six years ago, and some of my EASA qualified Cat A technicians who have full type ratings on 737NG and A320 series will be taking home only 1300 Euros per month on our new shift system. Bear in mind that you can earn that working in a Supermarket or as a Cleaner, it shows how bad our industry is at the moment. However, at least I still have a job, and when you look at the cuts Lufthansa wants to make, it is criminal that a department not affected can cause such disruption. Rant over  >:( 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19497890

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