Ongoing Feud Over Retirement Benefits Disrupting Flights

The weekend could start out badly for passengers expecting to fly on Lufthansa Airlines. The carrier's pilots union has extended its latest labor action to Friday, potentially disrupting hundreds of flights.

The union has been in an extended battle with management over retirement benefits.

Buying Business Travel relays a report from the BBC which indicates that the airline said it hopes to operate about three-quarters of Friday's scheduled flights across all carriers of the Lufthansa group. But the airline also placed the blame for cancelled flights directly on the union. The airline said in a statement: "With the third strike notice in three days, the pilots are escalating the labour dispute on the backs of our passengers instead of constructively finding solutions at the negotiating table."

The union said that the strikes were not about preventing the airline from making strategic business decisions. In a statement on the union website, spokesman Jorg Handwerg said "Competition should not lead to a sell-off of the values that have a significant role in ensuring that Lufthansa has become one of the world's leading aerospace companies."

Lufthansa says it recently agreed to a five percent pay raise for the pilots and other concessions.

Lufthansa is facing pressure from low-cost carriers in Europe, and said it lost over $247 million in 2014 due to ten such labor actions last year.

FMI: www.lufthansa.com/de/en/Travel-information