Lufthansa’s pilots have voted to take industrial action in the latest pay dispute to affect the German airline.
Pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) announced on Sunday that 97.6 per cent of its members working for Lufthansa had voted for industrial action.
The union stressed this vote does not mean there will “necessarily” be strike action, but warned it was an “unmistakable signal” to Lufthansa that it must take “the needs of its cockpit staff seriously”.
The vote by Lufthansa’s pilots comes just days after the airline was forced to cancel more than 1,000 flights last week due to a one-day walkout by ground staff in a separate pay dispute.
Marcel Grols, VC’s chairman of collective bargaining policy, said: "We now need a modern and fair, internationally competitive remuneration structure in all professional groups."
VC said that its members’ demand were “primarily about compensating for the loss of real wages” and called for Lufthansa to show “a serious will to find a solution”.
A Lufthansa spokesperson said: "We respect the result of the VC strike vote. We will continue to hold constructive talks with the VC in order to find a joint solution for our pilots. The next meeting dates have already been agreed with the VC."
Pilots at Lufthansa’s sister airline Swiss have also voted against a new collective labour agreement (CLA), which had been agreed between the airline and the Aeropers pilots’ association.
The airline said it “regrets” the rejection of its new deal by pilots, but added it was “not expected to adversely affect the stability of Swiss’s flight operations”.
Oliver Buchhofer, Swiss’s head of operations, said: “Had it been accepted, the new CLA would have given us contractual stability in a highly volatile airline environment for the next four years. We regret this referendum result; but we naturally accept this majority decision.”