(MENAFN- AFP) Lufthansa pilots launched a strike Monday, deepening Germany's travel chaos after train drivers stopped work at the weekend just as school holidays began in much of the country.
The top-selling Bild daily complained that "ping-pong strikes are crippling our economy", Europe's biggest, as about 10,000 pilots and 20,000 train drivers had "taken hostage" 80 million Germans.
The German Industry Federation charged that the pilots strike, following the "disproportionate" railway stoppage, "harms the entire economy" by impacting logistics, tourism and business travel.
The Economy Ministry said the strikes will certainly "impact some sectors of the economy", though there was no reason to change the 2014 growth forecast which was lowered this month to 1.2 percent.
Pilots for Lufthansa, Europe's biggest airline, said they would broaden strike action to long-haul flights on top of a previously announced stoppages on short- and medium-length routes.
The industrial action on Monday and Tuesday was expected to affect some 200,000 passengers.
Pilots were to stop short- and medium-haul flights departing between 1100 GMT Monday and 2159 GMT Tuesday, as well as intercontinental flights scheduled to leave Tuesday between 0400 and 2159 GMT.
The strike will not affect Lufthansa subsidiaries Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines or Germanwings, the low-cost carrier whose pilots held a 12-hour strike last week.
Pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) launched what was its ninth action to buffet Lufthansa this year in a bid to keep an early retirement scheme that management wants to phase out to reduce costs.
- Infrastructure paralysed -
The stoppages come as autumn school holidays start in seven of Germany's 16 states and are ongoing in two more.
"Now, during the holiday period, I think this is pretty brazen," one affected air passenger told NTV television, though he voiced some understanding that "everyone has interests they want to promote".
Lufthansa accused the union of bringing Germany to "a standstill" and sought to draft in qualified pilots in management positions to ensure a third of scheduled services still operate.
The airline labelled the strike "completely incomprehensible and disproportionate" and demanded legislation against actions that cripple large parts of Germany's travel infrastructure.
Lufthansa spokesman Andreas Bartels said the company wants new "rules of the game for such labour disputes, which are needed especially in infrastructure-critical" sectors of the economy.
Berlin is working on legislation to stop small groups of employees from paralysing large parts of the infrastructure of the German economy, and a draft law is expected in November.
The flight chaos compounded disruptions faced by German rail passengers after a weekend when train drivers halted at least two thirds of passenger and cargo services nationwide.
The GDL train drivers' union launched their biggest stoppage since 2008 in demand for more pay, shorter hours as well as the right to represent other rail carriage personnel.
GDL chief Claus Weselsky announced a seven-day pause to strikes but warned of more stoppages after that if rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) does not offer "real negotiations".
His union earlier rejected an offer of a five-percent wage increase over 30 months.
DB said the strike had caused damage "in the tens of millions of euros" while its human resources director Ulrich Weber charged that the small union "has not moved one millimetre, has applied pressure, angered millions of customers and damaged the company".
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