The unions Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) and Unabhängige Flugbegleiter Organisation (UFO) have called for a massive strike at Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, and Lufthansa CityLine on February 12, 2026. The 24-hour industrial action, running from 00:01 to 23:59 local time, will halt all departures from German airports, severely impacting operations at the Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC) hubs.
The core of the dispute with pilots in the mainline and cargo divisions centers on the degradation of the company pension scheme. Until 2017, flight crews benefited from a traditional pension with guaranteed payouts, which was replaced by a capital market-funded model. According to VC, this current scheme fails significantly to meet previous retirement security levels.
Following seven failed rounds of negotiations, the union revealed that management ignored a last-resort proposal to extend the current pension agreement until late 2026 with adjustments to the investment strategy. “This offer was well below our ballot-approved demands,” explained Arne Karstens, spokesperson for the Group-Tarifkommission (GTK). Karstens added that management let the deadlines expire without a response, demonstrating a “complete lack of willingness to negotiate.”
The situation at Lufthansa CityLine is reaching a breaking point. With the closure of the flight operation already publicly communicated, 98% of UFO members voted in favor of industrial action. The union denounces that management is using the absence of a “formal closure resolution” as a pretext to avoid negotiating a social plan that includes binding severance pay.
Harry Jaeger, Head of Collective Bargaining Policy at UFO, criticized the alternatives offered by the holding: “Offers to transfer to the non-unionized Lufthansa City Airlines under significantly worse conditions, or vague hints at potential entries into the Lufthansa mainline, are no substitute for a social plan.” For the union, only a binding severance agreement ensures that employees are not “subject to blackmail due to economic necessity” as their jobs disappear.
At the flagship carrier, the strike follows a stalemate in the Framework Collective Agreement (MTV) negotiations. UFO accuses Lufthansa of attempting to fund an “investment backlog” by increasing workload under the guises of “flexibility” and “productivity.”
The union contends that the company seeks to push rest periods toward European minimum legal limits, ignoring national labor protection standards. Joachim Vázquez Bürger, Chairman of the UFO Board, warned that roster planning at the legal safety limits leads to exhaustion, posing a risk to both crews and passengers. “Management is determined to lower the protection level of working conditions,” Jaeger stated, emphasizing that they will not negotiate rollbacks in the MTV.
Beyond the primary hubs, the strike will paralyze CityLine operations in Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Hanover. VC President Andreas Pinheiro is scheduled to provide an official video statement tomorrow, February 11, to detail the scope of the mobilization.