AFP/DPA/Frankfurt

Lufthansa pilots, on strike since Monday, extended their industrial action to include long-haul flights yesterday, grounding almost all inbound and outbound services at Germany’s usually-busy Frankfurt airport.
In the eighth walkout by its pilots this year, the German airline said that it has cancelled 1,511 flights over the two days of the stoppage, with some 166,000 passengers affected.
Nevertheless, the situation in Frankfurt, Germany’s busiest airport, was relatively calm because around 90,000 passengers had been informed in advance via e-mail or text message, a Lufthansa spokesman said.
The strike started on Monday at 1100 GMT, initially on short and medium-haul services, but was extended to include long-haul flights at 0400 GMT yesterday.
The walkout was scheduled to end at 2159 GMT.
The airline’s management had asked the regional labour court to slap an injunction on the industrial action, which it said was illegal.
But the court rejected Lufthansa’s application.
The pilots are striking over plans by management to raise the age at which pilots are able to take early retirement.
At present, pilots are allowed to retire at 55 and receive up to 60% of their pay until they reach the statutory retirement age.
Travellers in Germany already faced separate strikes by train drivers at the weekend.
In an interview with the mass-circulation daily Bild, transport minister Alexander Dobrindt complained that the repeated strikes were “killing” the economy.
“Our transport axes are our country’s central nervous system... a long-lasting blockade will cause a great deal of damage to the economy,” the minister said.
The federation of German tour operators, DRV, slammed both strikes as “totally unreasonable and unacceptable”.
“An entire nation is being taken hostage. This cannot go on any longer,” raged DRV president Norbert Fiebig.
The situation would discredit employees’ right to strike, Fiebig argued.
“I call on both sides not to carry out their disputes on customers’ backs, but to return to the negotiating table,” he said.
The pilots union has threatened more stoppages later in the week.
“If there’s no progress in this labour conflict, if Lufthansa keeps stonewalling, we won’t rule out further strikes this week,” said Markus Wahl, a spokesman for the Cockpit Union.
The previous day, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised the strikers, whose stoppage comes on the heels of a labour walkout on much of the German rail system.
“She hopes these conflicts will be settled quickly,” said Merkel spokesman Georg Streiter.
The early retirement scheme is a special benefit for the 5,400 pilots employed at Lufthansa, its budget offshoot Germanwings and Lufthansa Cargo and is not available to cabin crew or ground staff.