Strike announcement for Lufthansa intercontinental flights on 8 September 2015

The pilots’ union, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), has announced a Germany-wide strike on Lufthansa long-haul flights for tomorrow, Tuesday 8 September 2015 from 08.00 hours until 23.59 hours CET. In addition, there will also be a strike on Lufthansa Cargo. 

With a relatively large number of cockpit personnel indicating their willingness to fly, Lufthansa will be able to operate more than half of its intercontinental flights despite the VC’s strike call. All in all, 84 long-haul services from/to Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf will have to be cancelled, while 90 such flights can be operated.

Lufthansa short- and medium-haul flights, flights by the Lufthansa Group airlines Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Germanwings and SWISS (operated by OS, SN, EW, 4U, LX) as well as flights by Air Dolomiti (operated by EN) are unaffected by the strike and will operate as scheduled. 

Lufthansa has issued a special timetable for tomorrow’s strike period. The necessary flight cancellations have already been made and are published on LH.com:

Continuously updated list of all cancelled Lufthansa flights

A small number of inbound intercontinental flights to Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf will also have to be cancelled today, to ensure that flight operations can resume as smoothly as possible on Wednesday after the strike.

As a result of the strike, there will also be a change to the departure times of selected long-haul flights departing from Frankfurt and Munich.

The following flights have been moved to an earlier departure time on Tuesday, 8 September 2015:

• LH 444 FRA-ATL
• LH 430 FRA-ORD

The following flights have been postponed to an early-morning departure on Wednesday, 9 September 2015:

• LH 778 FRA-SIN
• LH 572 FRA-JNB
• LH 506 FRA-GRU
• LH 510 FRA-EZE
• LH 504 MUC-GRU
• LH 520 MUC-MEX
• LH 730 MUC-HKG

For technical reasons it is not possible to display these timetable changes in the Availability Displays of the GDSs or in the PNR. In Amadeus the time changes will be evident in the DO transaction, e.g. DO LH572/09SEP; an SSR element in the PNR will notify you about the time change. Possible connecting flights will have to be rebooked manually. Lufthansa will inform those affected customers, who have set up a profile, about the time change by text message.

All passengers are requested to check the status of their flight at LH.com before setting out on their journey. Lufthansa passengers who have saved their mobile phone number in their customer profile will be notified about relevant cancellations by text message.

Flight status request for individual flights

In the event of flight cancellations, the affected segments will be set as ‘UN’ if possible and appear in your queue. They will include an SSR element: SSR OTHS 1A CNL D/T PILOTS STRIKE.

For technical reasons delays can occur with the ‘UN’ messages. If customers on cancelled flights are rebooked by Lufthansa on to alternative flights, the new segments are apparent in the PNR; the tickets will be revalidated automatically if possible. If no revalidation is possible (e.g. in the case of a route change), Lufthansa will automatically reissue a ticket. Please note: no ‘UN’ is set for flights cancelled on the departure day.

Customers affected by a flight cancellation can rebook free of charge or have their ticket refunded. You are welcome to make rebookings/reissues for cancelled Lufthansa flights yourself in accordance with the Lufthansa Standard INVOL rules. You can make the refund on an involuntary basis directly in your GDS.

In addition, the following goodwill provision applies: any passenger with a booked Lufthansa flight on an LH document on 8 September 2015 from/via/to Frankfurt, Munich or Dusseldorf whose flight has not been cancelled and whose ticket has been issued no later than 8 September 2015, may rebook once free of charge.

The following rules apply to these rebookings:

• Rebooking on an alternative Lufthansa Group flight/connection (flight number and operated by: LH, LX, OS, SN, EW, 4U) – in the original booking class or alternatively within the same class of carriage
• New travel date no later than 8 December 2015
• Rebooking on an alternative Lufthansa flight which is operated by another airline – in the original booking class only
• The departure and destination points for the journey must remain unchanged. Exception: rebooking/reissue to an alternative nearby departure/destination airport within Germany, e.g. DUS instead of CGN, HAM instead of HAJ.
• In the case of reissues the endorsement entry should read: 1015

For refunds of tickets that are not affected by flight cancellations, the fare conditions apply.

You will find general information on handling flight irregularities on OS documents here.

You will find general information on handling flight irregularities on LX documents here.

Lufthansa very much regrets the inconvenience caused by this further strike action and would like to apologise to you and the passengers affected. Please be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep the effects of the strike to a minimum.