Cabin crew union UFO has announced that it is calling off a planned strike for later this week against Lufthansa, The Local de reports. On Monday the union had planned a series of walkouts for Thursday, Friday and Monday.
Reuters reports that the union and the airline had agreed on a concept for pensions and retirement benefits that could lead to an agreement.
The move follows a major strike by UFO earlier this month, which was the longest in Lufthansa's history and forced the airline to cancel approximately 4,700 flights over seven days, affecting 550,000 passengers. An analysis by Bloomberg Business released at the time of that strike noted that Deutsche Lufthansa AG CEO Carsten Spohr, who took over the company 18 months ago, was attempting to put the airline group through a major restructuring he argued was necessary to take on competitors like EasyJet and British Airways.
The latest word from this week's aborted strike seems to be that UFO and Lufthansa are moving forward on the larger issues surrounding the future of the airline group as well. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lufthansa and UFO have also agreed to enter mediation on how to continue growing the main Lufthansa brand.
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