Lufthansa cabin crew strike cancels hundreds of flights in Germany

A Lufthansa cabin crew strike caused widespread flight cancellations Friday at Germany’s busiest airports, affecting more than 90,000 passengers.

At Frankfurt Airport, the country’s main international gateway, roughly 580 flights were scrapped out of about 1,350 scheduled departures and arrivals. Munich Airport, the airline’s second major hub, saw around 400 flights affected.

The one-day strike, called by the Independent Flight Attendants Organization, ran from shortly after midnight until 10 pm local time (2000 GMT). Cabin crew at Lufthansa’s regional subsidiary CityLine also joined the walkout at nine German airports.

Independent Flight Attendants Organization chair Joachim Vazquez Buerger accused Lufthansa of failing to present a negotiable offer, saying the disruption “would have been avoidable.” He noted that the union had refrained from action during the peak Easter travel days but warned that Friday’s strike could still hit passengers heading home at the end of the holiday.

Lufthansa urged travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport and said it was notifying affected passengers automatically. The carrier deployed a contingency plan that included extra flights by subsidiaries and larger aircraft on some routes.

Friday’s action marks the latest in a series of labor disputes at Lufthansa this year. In mid-February, UFO joined pilots from the Vereinigung Cockpit union for a joint one-day strike that caused similar widespread cancellations. The union had voted overwhelmingly in late March to authorize strikes after wage talks broke down.