Lufthansa Pilot Strike Wednesday – Thursday (September 7 – 8, 2022)

Lufthansa Pilot Union, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), representing more than 5,000 pilots, announced on Tuesday that the strikes that started last week would continue on Wednesday and Thursday (September 7 – 8, 2022).

Pilots of Deutsche Lufthansa are set to strike from 00:01 AM on September 7 until 11:59 PM on September 8, 2022. Lufthansa Cargo’s pilots are on strike for three days from September 7 until September 9.

You can access Lufthansa here.

There is no notice about this latest strike on Lufthansa’s website, but the one-day strike last week canceled more than 800 flights, close to all at its Munich and Frankfurt hubs, inconveniencing 130,000 passengers.

There will be some flight cancellations already today and later in the week at long-haul destinations when planes and crews are out of their usual rotations.

Flights operated by Eurowings and Eurowings Discover are not affected by this strike activity.

REBOOKING:

Lufthansa likely tries to book affected passengers on other airlines, but good luck getting through to the airline if the rebooking robot cannot find acceptable alternatives.

Domestic tickets for flights within Germany can be converted to train tickets like in the past.

EC 261/2004

Lufthansa is required to provide Duty to care to affected passengers, but no cash compensation is due. Duty to care means providing hotel accommodation, meals, and phone cards in case of delayed/canceled flights.

Passengers can also cancel their flights that are not operated and opt for a refund instead.

Conclusion

The summer of chaos in Europe continues with these Lufthansa strikes.

It is unlikely that all affected passengers can be rebooked on other airlines, so there will be delays of days for some passengers that happen to be at one of Lufthansa’s long-haul destinations.

I wish that Lufthansa and its cockpit union could find an amicable solution for both parties to end these strikes.