FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Pilots at Lufthansa Discover Airlines will continue to strike on Monday in the fight for a collective agreement. Passengers must be prepared for cancellations and delays up to and including Monday evening. As was already the case on Sunday, a number of connections will also be canceled on Monday, as can be seen from the online departure board at Frankfurt Airport. These include flights to the Canary Islands and the USA. The Discover flights planned from Munich were to be operated by Lufthansa.

Many short and medium-haul flights to take off

According to Discover Airlines, 90 percent of the planned short and medium-haul flights are expected to take off from Frankfurt during the two-day strike. On long-haul routes, around 30 percent of connections should be operated. A total of 27 departures are planned from Frankfurt during the strike window. Passengers should check their flight status as regularly as possible.

This is already the third strike after a five-hour warning strike shortly before Christmas and a regular strike lasting a whole day at the end of January, after the pilots had voted in favor of strike action in a corresponding ballot of the Vereinigung Cockpit pilots' union (VC).

Pilots want to fight for a collective agreement

This time, the union has called on the pilots to lay down their work for 48 hours. VC is fighting for a first collective agreement at the airline, which was founded two and a half years ago and operates 24 aircraft. The union considers the negotiations with the employer to have failed for the time being.

The latter criticized the new strike call. A spokeswoman for the Lufthansa subsidiary said that the union had been told to submit an improved offer by February 7. "The fact that VC is now calling a strike for the third time in just a few weeks without waiting for the new offer they have requested from the employer makes it clear that this is not about good solutions for the employees, but about pursuing other interests." The union did not wish to comment on this accusation when asked./swe/DP/zb