Pilots of Germany's Lufthansa airlines have decided to expand their strike by one more day on international routes, resulting in cancellation of over 1,500 flights to various countries, including India, affecting over 160,000 travellers.
The eighth strike this year by the pilots over retirement benefits forced Germany's largest airline to cancel more than 1,500 flights on Monday.
Several Lufthansa flights to Indian cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai have also been cancelled, a statement by the airlines said.
The airline estimated that around 1,66,000 air travellers will be affected by the cancellation of flights.
Passengers to and from Frankfurt are among the hardest hit.
Lufthansa pilots' trade union Vereinigung Cockpit originally planned the strike for 35 hours on Monday and limited it to short and medium-haul domestic and European flights.
However, shortly before the strike got underway, the union extended it for one more day until midnight tomorrow and included long-haul flights.
This is expected to further aggravate the misery of its passengers and chaos at the airports.
Lufthansa said it operated a third of its flights on Monday with a special flight schedule and this enabled at least a part of its passengers to reach their destinations.
The union representing around 5,400 Lufthansa pilots called the strike to press its demand that the airline should keep its present pre-retirement scheme for pilots, which allows them to retire at the age of 55 and receive 60 per cent of their last salary until they reach the retirement age of 65.
Lufthansa management wants to abolish the scheme and to raise the pre-retirement to 61 as part of its efforts to reduce costs.
Lufthansa pilots are also against management plans to expand the national carrier's low-cost operations that will allow it to compete more efficiently with budget airlines on European routes.
Last week, Lufthansa's budget carrier Germanwings also cancelled around 100 flights after its pilots stopped work for 12 hours in response to a strike call by VC.
Various estimates suggested that the overall costs for Lufthansa from the work stoppage by its pilots since April could be more than 70 million euros.
Meanwhile, Germany's rail operator Deutsche Bahn said its train services across the country have returned to normalcy after they were crippled by a two-day strike by locomotive drivers over the weekend.
