IRELAND: Lufthansa strike: Dublin airport cancels 12 flights this weekend

DUBLIN: German airline Lufthansa have cancelled more than 800 flights, including 12 to and from Dublin Airport over the next three days, due to a strike by pilots.

The cancellations are likely to affect over 130,000 passengers across Thursday, Friday and Saturday while anyone flying with Lufthansa in the coming days are urged to check their flight details.

The affected flights to and from Dublin are connected to Frankfurt and Munich airports as the strike begins at 00:01am on Friday morning.

It’s estimated that close to 2,000 passengers flying in and out of Dublin Airport over the coming days will have their flights cancelled.

Following the failure of pay negotiations, the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union said late on Wednesday that Lufthansa pilots will go on a 24-hour strike beginning soon after midnight on Thursday, impacting both passenger and cargo services.

For its more than 5,000 pilots, VC is asking a 5.5 percent salary increase this year and automatic inflation compensation moving forward.

On Thursday, a Lufthansa representative said, "We aim to return to negotiations as soon as possible." But we also cannot afford the cost hikes brought on by VC's demands, he continued.

Strikes and staff shortages have already caused thousands of flights to be cancelled this summer by airlines like Lufthansa, and they have resulted in hours-long waits at major airports, aggravating vacationers eager to travel following Covid-19 lockdowns.

Security personnel and ground crew have already threatened to strike against Lufthansa this year over salary.

The airline stated that it was making every effort to minimise the effects of the pilots' strike on Friday, but it could not completely rule out some cancellations or delays over the weekend.

The human resources executive board member of Lufthansa, Michael Niggemann, criticised the strike as being "incomprehensible" and defended the company's "extremely good and socially balanced" offer.