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BERLIN (Reuters) - Pilots at Lufthansa's (DE:LHAG) Germanwings started a six-hour strike on Friday, disrupting the travel plans of thousands of people returning from summer holidays, applying pressure on Lufthansa management in their dispute over a pension scheme.
Low-cost carrier Germanwings, which mostly operates short-haul flights from airports outside of Lufthansa's main Frankfurt and Munich hubs, said it was cancelling 116 flights, affecting 15,000 passengers.
The cancellations are equivalent to 70 percent of its scheduled flights for the strike period, which runs from 05:00 AM BST until 11:00 AM BST.
On a regular day, Lufthansa operates about 1,800 flights from airports such as Cologne-Bonn, Duesseldorf, Berlin and Stuttgart.
A spokesman for Germanwings said the situation at Cologne-Bonn airport was quiet on Friday morning, with many passengers having rebooked or cancelled flights.
Pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit wants Lufthansa to maintain an early retirement scheme that allows pilots to retire at 55 and still receive 60 percent of their pay until state pension payments kick in.
It says that the company should keep the scheme for young pilots just starting at Lufthansa. The airline, meanwhile, argues that there is no need for the scheme, given rising life expectancy and a court ruling that pilots can now work until the age of 65.
A three-day nationwide strike by Lufthansa pilots in April over the same issue effectively grounded the airline and wiped 60 million euros ($79.04 million) off its first-half profit.
Meanwhile, the biggest pilots' union at Air France (PA:AIRF) on Thursday also called for a strike from Sept. 15 to Sept. 22, saying that it wanted its voice to be heard as the airline prepares a new strategic plan to be launched on September 11.
(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Additional reporting by Ralf Banser; Editing by David Goodman)