Lufthansa Cabin Crew Vote For Further Strikes After Talks Fail

(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Lufthansa AG faces strike action after a cabin crew union voted to escalate its conflict with Europe’s biggest airline group.

The UFO union said in a statement late Friday that members voted for strike action at the group’s airlines including Lufthansa and Lufthansa CityLine after pay talks with company bosses broke down. The union will now decide when the strikes will take place.

Lufhansa didn’t accept a proposal from the union and the union will announce the escalation of protests in a video message next Monday at 2 pm local time, a spokeswoman said in the press release.

Lufthansa last month cancelled flights at its SunExpress Deutschland, Lufthansa CityLine, Germanwings and Eurowings after UFO called a warning strike. A separate strike at the main airline was cancelled after the company agreed to a 2% wage increase by the end of the year, UFO said.

The labor dispute adds to the headaches at Lufthansa, which warned in July that the fight for market share means business performance could deteriorate further in the second half. The company will report third quarter earnings on November 7.

The carrier’s domestic market has become a battleground, with competition from low cost rivals continuing just as headwinds from the German economic slowdown combine with simmering trade tensions.

To contact the reporters on this story: William Wilkes in Frankfurt at wwilkes1@bloomberg.net;Steven Arons in Frankfurt at sarons@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Molly Kissler

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