LONDON (Bloomberg) - Pilots at Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s discount carrier will strike for 72 hours from midnight CET on Monday after Germany’s Vereinigung Cockpit union called Eurowings’ latest offer “completely insufficient.”
The current dispute centers “exclusively” around a reduction of pilot workload and not pay for cockpit staff, according to a statement issued by the union late Friday. The employees “have no choice but to express their displeasure about the workload in their airline through a strike and to build up pressure,” union board member Matthias Beier said.
The walkout will be the second strike this month by Eurowings pilots. On Oct. 6 the airline had to cancel about 250 flights, or half of the daily total it operates to destinations in Germany and Europe.
Eurowings said the planned strike puts the carrier’s operations at risk. The walkout is “endangering the future of Eurowings Germany,” Kai Duve, Eurowings manager in charge of finances and personnel said in a statement. The union “is inevitably forcing Eurowings into a reduction of its German flight operations and endangering jobs -- not just in the cockpit,” he added.
Eurowings’ parent Lufthansa has been wrestling with a series of strikes and a chaotic summer travel season. Last month it finally reached an agreement with its pilots to raise pay for cockpit crew, averting further strikes for about a year. The agreement doesn’t apply to Eurowings.