After six rounds of negotiations with Lufthansa management have failed to reach agreement on a new contract, the Lufthansa pilot’s union is voting through Sunday, July 31, on whether to authorize a possible strike. The pilots union is asking for a 5.5 percent raise and future cost-of-living adjustments. The balloting of up to 5,000 Lufthansa
pilots could result in a strike as early as next week but could also occur any time later if 70 percent of the pilots authorize a strike. Earlier this week Lufthansa canceled
nearly all of its flights in Europe when its ground crews went on a scheduled one-day strike.
Six years ago Lufthansa’s pilots went on strike for six days effectively grounding the airline’s flights.
Posted by
49 posts
Boy I am glad I changed my flight earlier this year for my upcoming BOE trip and the end of August.... I was flying through Munich on Lufthansa, now I am direct into Rome United. Of course it still is a little dicey going through EWR...
Posted by
Reno, NV, USA
2547 posts
We have a flight from Frankfurt to Edinburgh on August 10 with Lufthansa. The flights were booked with United. What a mess. I hope this gets resolved before our final flight to Edinburgh. This is causing me a lot of concern.
Posted by
WA
121 posts
I am home, but dazed, after surviving the Frankfurt Lufthansa strike on Wednesday. My son and I finished our My Way Alpine Europe tour on July 22nd, and had tickets to fly Swissair out of Geneva 6:55am July 27, and a connecting Lufthansa flight to return home from Frankfurt to SeaTac at 10:45am July 27.
Our 2 flights were canceled a day apart, and canceled with less than 48 hours departure notice. In the end, I purchased a pair of SwissTours bus tickets out of Chamonix, a Sheraton Frankfurt airport room for $320, and I forfeited the money for a hotel night in Geneva, a Mountain Drop Offs shuttle from Chamonix to Geneva, and 2 train tickets from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. I was on the cusp of paying $2600 each, out of pocket, for 2 airline tickets on Delta out of Amsterdam to SeaTac, because available flights to SeaTac from Europe were essentially non-existent. My son and I waited hours in the Frankfurt Lufthansa rebooking line on the evening of July 26, but the line closed for rebooking services before we could reach the counter.
For 3 days of frantic traveling across France, Switzerland and Germany, our travel agent, at Elizabeth Holmes Travel, simultaneously spent 10-20 hours on the phone with Lufthansa trying to rebook us, or find any viable return options from Europe. In the end, she swung a rebooked Lufthansa Geneva flight, and then a cobbled-together Singapore Airlines and Alaska Airlines combo, to get us home from Frankfurt.
My son and I had a hard, but occasionally amazing, journey home. We felt like extras in a disaster movie. Sometimes we felt part of an urgent, mass migration. I am now definitely the number 1 fan of my travel agent; she was relentlessly magnificent, and we would be stranded in Europe if not for her.
Posted by
California USA
4100 posts
A Bay Area group of 118 high school student musicians and chaperones were caught by the cancelled flights last week. Lufthansa told them it might be late August or early September before they could reschedule. Many phone calls were made and Lufthansa (I think) sent them home on a chartered flight
Posted by
WA
121 posts
Wow, by chartered flight. I hope so. I was horrified and indignant when the idea was proposed of buying 2 tickets out of Amsterdam 2 days after our canceled, Frankfurt, Lufthansa flight, for $5,200. Until it was explained to me that it could easily be a month before they could rebook us and get us home.
Posted by
241 posts
When your flight is cancelled like this can you just take a refund for the cancelled flight and book on another airlines yourself?
Posted by
Reno, NV, USA
2547 posts
I am looking at buying a nonstop flight on a budget airline for the day following our arrival in FRA from another city easily accessible by train such as Basel or Brussels to get to our final destination of EDI just as an insurance policy. I will wait a few more days and see how things are panning out with the strike before booking this alternative. Thanks for the heads up, Kenko.
Posted by
Reno, NV, USA
2547 posts
More news on the potential strike.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/lufthansa-pilot-strike-could-hit-20-us-airports-rcna40957
Posted by
OP
Citizen of the World
2006 posts
Results of the vote by Lufthansa pilots are in and 97.6% of them voted in favor of striking. There will be more than just talk expected at the 7th round of negotiations when the pilot’s union sits down again with Lufthansa management. And if the union does not see enough progress they can now call for a strike.
Posted by
Cortez, CO, USA
103 posts
Well, if the pilots are going to strike, I selfishly hope they do it this month. I'm booked on Lufthansa DEN-MUC-FCO in mid-September.