Pilots at Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and subsidiary Eurowings began a 48-hour strike on Monday morning.
Hundreds of flights were set to be canceled, with the airline’s main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich hit hardest. This is the fourth strike to affect the carrier in 2026.
Lufthansa has been unable to reach agreements with the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) and the UFO cabin crew union, which had called its own strike just last week.
Which flights and services were affected by the strike?
Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s busiest, showed most Lufthansa departures within Europe canceled for Monday. Several domestic services were listed as replacement rail connections instead.
The airport warned there would be delays and cancellations all day on April 13 and 14 at Frankfurt due to the VC strike.
Munich Airport’s departures search listed only flights still scheduled but carried a strong warning for Lufthansa and Eurowings passengers to check with their carriers amid severe strike-related disruption.
Eurowings pilots were striking only on Monday, while Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo pilots affiliated with VC were on strike for both days. Eurowings said it expected to keep a large part of its services operating despite the action.
Not all pilots across Lufthansa’s airlines are VC members, so full participation was not guaranteed.
Middle Eastern flights exempt amid Iran and Gulf conflict
VC said it would exempt flights to several destinations in the Middle East because of travel uncertainty linked to the conflict in Iran and the wider region. Flights from Germany by Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cityline to Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen were not included in the strike.
What the airline and the union said
Lufthansa said it was working intensively to minimize the impact on passengers, seeking to have as many flights as possible operated by other airlines within the Lufthansa Group and by partner carriers. The airline advised passengers of canceled flights that they could swap tickets for Deutsche Bahn rail journeys.
The pilots’ action centers on pay disputes, company pension arrangements and remuneration at regional subsidiary CityLine.
Lufthansa criticized VC’s demands, saying that the union’s core call to double an already above-average company pension plan was “absurd and unfulfillable.”
VC placed much of the blame on the airline. VC President Andreas Pinheiro said the union felt forced into strike action after the employer showed no recognisable willingness to resolve several wage disputes. He added that VC had refrained from striking over the Easter holidays but still had not received offers worth considering or signs of willingness to negotiate from the employer.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse