Travelore News: Lufthansa Publishes Special Flight Timetable For September 30th Reflecting Flight Reductions Due To Strike

More than half of long-haul flights from Frankfurt will operate

In relation to the renewed strike announced by the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots‘ union, Lufthansa has canceled 25 long-haul flights from Frankfurt for Tuesday, September 30. A total of 57 intercontinental flights were originally scheduled from Frankfurt tomorrow and 32 of those are planned to depart. Of those 32 flights, 26 will be flown by volunteer pilots, two others will depart earlier and four have been deferred to the following day (Wednesday). All the details on flight cancellations and flight-departure changes are listed in the Lufthansa special flight timetable, which has been published on the www.LH.com website.

The Lufthansa hub in Munich will not be impacted by the strike: Flights to and from Düsseldorf and short-haul flights from and to Frankfurt will also operate as scheduled. Furthermore, flights operated by the Lufthansa Group airlines Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Germanwings, SWISS and Air Dolomiti (OS, SN, 4U, LX, EN) will not be affected either.

This fifth strike action within just four weeks will hit Lufthansa in the busiest air-traffic month of the year. Both the number of scheduled flights, as well as capacities, are traditionally at their highest level over the year at the end of September. Moreover, it is especially difficult at the end of the month to change crewing rosters and get pilots to volunteer for flights because planning options are restricted by the monthly limits on pilots’ flight-duty hours. Furthermore, Lufthansa is barred from resorting to night flights by the stringent night-flight ban after 11 p.m. at its home base in Frankfurt.

“Even if we manage under these difficult conditions to get more than half our scheduled long-haul flights from Frankfurt off the ground with volunteer crews tomorrow (Tuesday), the walkout will again severely damage our reputation and erode confidence in our airline’s reliability. The VC union’s repeated resort to strike action will damage Lufthansa with unforeseeable consequences for all 120,000 employees, including the pilots,” emphasized Kay Kratky, member of the Lufthansa German Airlines Board with responsibility for Operations and the Frankfurt Hub. “We apologize explicitly for the measures taken by the VC union, which is the only collective bargaining partner at Lufthansa intent on uncompromising and inconsiderate pursuit of its individual interests.”

Passengers whose flights have to be canceled due to the strike can rebook or cancel their flight free-of-charge. Furthermore, all passengers scheduled to fly tomorrow (September 30) with Lufthansa or any of the Group airlines from or to Frankfurt may also rebook a flight once at a later date during the present year free-of-charge.

In order to ensure that flight operations go ahead as smoothly as possible once again on Wednesday, Lufthansa is today also canceling flights from abroad to Frankfurt. The connections, which are affected, are also listed in the special flight timetable on the www.LH.com website.

All Lufthansa passengers with long-haul tickets from and to Frankfurt are kindly requested to check the status of their flights on the LH.com website well before the scheduled departure time.

Travelore Update: Reduced Lufthansa Flight Timetable During Strike. Return to Normal Operations In Asia Begins Friday Evening, April 4th

By taking early precautions and providing customers with as much information as possible, Lufthansa has so far managed to mitigate the effects on passengers of the strike by the pilots’ union, Vereinigung Cockpit. Before the strike began, Lufthansa cancelled 3,800 flights. The situation at airports is very quiet. Around 425,000 passengers will have been affected by the industrial action. The impact on earnings will come to a medium double-digit million figure.

 Lufthansa’s significantly scaled back flight operations are on schedule, with the number of flights cut by around 90 percent. Thanks to the prompt planning of a stable minimum of operations, the remaining flights have so far taken place as planned. Lufthansa cancelled approximately 3,800 flights and is operating a remainder of some 500 connections. The impact on earnings will come to a medium double-digit million figure.

The situation is very quiet at all airports in Germany – including the major hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. About 20,000 customers were able to take the train instead, and Lufthansa switched others to the remaining members of the airline group, Star Alliance airlines or external carriers. More than 25,000 tickets were rebooked on www.LH.com. Although the capacity of the call centers was extended as much as possible, it was not possible to avoid long waiting times. On normal days, the Lufthansa call centers receive between 4,000 and 5,000 calls from customers. On Tuesday, there were 80,000, and yesterday, Wednesday, the figure was 25,000.

“We have prepared for this in the best possible way and significantly increased capacities at our call centers in advance so as to assist our customers with rebooking flights. Unfortunately, with such extremely high call volumes, in some cases, long waiting times cannot be avoided. We would like to apologize to our customers for this,” said Jens Bischof, Chief Commercial Officer, Lufthansa German Airlines. “We aim to be a competent partner, even in these exceptional circumstances. We will continue to devote all our efforts to finding alternative travel arrangements for every passenger.”

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In the course of Friday afternoon CET, preparations will begin in Asia for resuming flight operations with intercontinental aircraft. The first flights will take off at 5 p.m. CET from East Asia and will arrive in Europe early on Saturday morning. Flight operations at both Lufthansa and Germanwings should be back to schedule on Saturday. There may still be some irregularities due to operational reasons. This very swift return to normal operations is possible because, for the duration of the strike, the aircraft and crews have been stationed where operations are to resume upon conclusion of the strike.

Travelore Update: Due To Pilots’ Strike Lufthansa Has canceled Most Of Its Flights For Wednesday, Thursday And Friday; April 2nd, 3rd, & 4th.

A strike on three consecutive days would be one of the biggest walkouts in Lufthansa’s history.  More than 425,000 passengers are likely to be affected. Pilots of the Group airlines: Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Lufthansa CityLine and Air Dolomiti are not participating in the strike.

 Due to the strike announced by the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings have canceled approximately 3,800 flights on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (April 2–4). During the three day walkout of the cockpit crew, only about 500 Lufthansa short and long haul flights will be operated. The list of canceled flights is published on www.LH.com. Information for Germanwings passengers is available on www.germanwings.com.

Flight cancellations on such a massive scale will affect a total of 425,000 passengers. Lufthansa will inform all passengers who have registered their contact details in their booking or in their Miles & More profile about flight changes via text message and email. Most of the remaining domestic and European flights will be flown by the daughter companies, Eurowings and Lufthansa Cityline, whose pilots are not participating in the walkout.

In addition to Lufthansa Passenger Airlines, Lufthansa Cargo will also be affected. For the three strike days, 23 of 31 planned cargo flights from Frankfurt have already been canceled.

The pilots of the daughter companies, Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, Lufthansa CityLine and Air Dolomiti, as well as the pilots of Brussels Airlines, will not participate in the strike. Where possible, these companies will use larger planes on routes from and to Germany in order to bring as many rebooked Lufthansa passengers as possible to their destinations.

Additionally, Lufthansa will re-book affected passengers on other airlines and will provide train tickets on domestic routes in cooperation with German Railways (Deutsche Bahn). Airline tickets can be exchanged for a train ticket at automated check-ins or on the Internet. Information on how to exchange Germanwings flight tickets for train tickets is available onwww.germanwings.com/aktuell.

For further questions Lufthansa customers in the United States can also use the toll free service telephone number: 1-800-645-3880. Toll free numbers for other countries can be found at www.lufthansa.com/de/en/Travel-information. Already since last Friday, passengers can re-book or cancel flights at no cost for the period of April 2-4, 2014.

“I greatly regret that the Vereinigung Cockpit is not prepared to settle this by negotiations and to find a solution without engaging in a labor dispute. We made good offers for an improved salary as well as a future provision for early leave from flight service,” said Dr. Bettina Volkens, Member of the Executive Board Legal and Personnel of the Lufthansa Group. “Based on this, it is difficult to understand that the VC union is calling for a three-day strike right away - both for our customers and the more than one hundred thousand colleagues of the other Lufthansa employee groups. We will do our best to care for our customers during the strike. I want to thank in advance all employees that will go above and beyond what is normal and give their best for our customers and for the Company,” Volkens added.

Lufthansa is preparing a number of actions to minimize the impact, as far as possible, on its passengers. For example, in Frankfurt and Munich additional employees will be in the terminal to take care of passengers. In the Lufthansa service centers, capacities were already significantly increased. Passengers are requested to visithttps://www.lufthansa.com/xx/en/My-Bookings and check the status of their flight before leaving for the airport.

In total, a three-day pilot strike would alone, for Lufthansa German Airlines, have a negative impact on profit in the range of tens of millions of euros. The announcement has already caused significant damages since passengers have already rebooked flights and logistic customers have made arrangements with other cargo airlines to secure the transport of their goods.