At Lufthansa, the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots’ union is calling for a new 48-hour strike on Thursday and Friday. Hundreds of flights are at risk of being canceled due to the strike by more than 5,000 pilots, although destinations in the Middle East are expected to be unaffected. The main reason for the strike call is a long-running conflict over pensions and the airline group’s strategy.
The strike call affects Lufthansa, its cargo division Lufthansa Cargo, and, for the first time, its regional subsidiary Lufthansa City Line. Other airlines in the Lufthansa Group, including Brussels Airlines, are not participating in the social action.
Record profits but no concessions
This is already the second strike in a dispute over pensions at Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo. On February 12, pilots walked off the job for a day. More than 800 flights were canceled, affecting some 100,000 passengers.
According to VC, which wants better pension conditions, Lufthansa continues to signal its willingness to negotiate. However, after seven rounds of talks, management has still not put forward a concrete proposal.
Although exact percentages are often disclosed only after negotiations, the union typically requests an increase in the employer’s pension fund contribution that fully covers the rise in the cost of living, typically around 5% to 8%.
Lufthansa calls this “unaffordable” in a highly competitive market, despite the company’s recent record profit of nearly 2 billion euros for 2025. It has been indicated that the requested increase in pension contributions would raise wage costs by “tens of millions of euros per year.”
Ironically, a 48-hour strike, such as the one planned for Thursday and Friday, is estimated to cost Lufthansa between 15 million euros and 24 million euros per day.
The sting of the legal retirement age
However, the legal retirement age is also fueling the conflict between the pilots and Lufthansa. This age is currently being gradually raised to 67 in Germany. But European regulations stipulate that pilots may no longer fly commercial aircraft after the age of 65.
The dispute also centers on who should pay for those two years. The pilots want Lufthansa to extend the transitional arrangement (Übergangsversorgung) so that they are not left without income or with much less income for two years.
Lufthansa, on the other hand, wants to cut back on this, as every percentage-point increase in the guarantee of this benefit can weigh on its balance sheet by hundreds of millions of euros under the calculation rules for future pension costs.
Social unrest at City Line and Eurowings
In the case of City Line, which will be shut down by the end of 2026, pilots are fighting in negotiations that have been dragging on since 2024 for an annual 3.3% wage increase in 2024, 2025, and 2026. According to VS, the imminent closure does not affect the wage demands.
There is also social unrest at Eurowings, the German low-cost airline of the Lufthansa Group. A vote is currently underway among the pilots to decide whether there will also be strikes there.
