FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa (DE:LHAG) pilots staged a third straight day of walkouts on Friday, grounding 700 flights and stranding thousands of passengers in a protracted row over early retirement benefits and cost cuts.
Travellers also faced further disruption because of separate strikes by air traffic controllers in Italy and Acciona (MC:ANA) airport services workers at Frankfurt.
Lufthansa wants to cut spending to levels nearer those of its rivals. It is squeezed by budget carriers Ryanair (I:RYA) and easyJet (L:EZJ) on European routes and by airlines such as Turkish (IS:THYAO) and Emirates [EMIRA.UL] on long-haul flights.
Including Friday's strike, pilots have walked out 14 times since last April, costing Lufthansa more than 200 million euros ($214 million) in lost operating profit last year alone.
The strike forced Lufthansa to cancel 700 short and medium-distance flights on Friday, about half the scheduled flights at its flagship carrier and affecting 84,000 passengers. It is scrapping another 90 flights on Friday because of the Italian air traffic controllers' strike.
The Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union also called on pilots to strike on lucrative long-haul and cargo flights on Saturday.
The pilots "are moving further and further away from a solution, which must come at the negotiating table," Lufthansa said in a statement following VC's call for a fourth straight day of strikes.
The airline's dispute with pilots involves early retirement benefits that VC wants to keep but which Lufthansa wants to change for new hires.
The pilots also want Lufthansa to enter joint mediation on other outstanding issues, such as pay and bringing costs down on flights to tourist destinations. Lufthansa has rejected the demand.
Lufthansa is also due to start separate wage talks on Monday with services union Verdi, which represents about 33,000 Lufthansa workers on the ground, at IT unit Lufthansa Systems, catering unit LSG, Lufthansa Technik and Lufthansa Cargo.