The union that represents pilots at Discover Airlines, the leisure-orientated subsidiary of Lufthansa, have called a last-minute strike that will take place between 8 am and 1 pm on Saturday, 23rd December.
The pre-Christmas walkout encompasses both Airbus A320 and widebody A330 pilots, which are the only two aircraft types flown by Discover, Reuters reports. Only departures from Germany will be impacted, the Vereinigung Cockpit union said in a statement.
Formerly known as Eurowings Discover, the carrier was rebranded as Discover Airlines in September. The carrier operates leisure-focused routes from its Frankfurt hub and currently serves 26 destinations across North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
According to data supplied by Flight Radar 24, there are six departures from Frankfurt that could be impacted by the walkout. These include flights to Calgary, the Dominican Republic, Cancun, Namibia, Orlando, Southwest Florida, and Tampa.
One of the reasons that the Lufthansa Group created Discover Airlines was to reduce operating costs with lower-paid staff, including flight attendants and pilots. Employees at Discover earn less and have fewer benefits than their peers at Lufthansa’s mainline airline.
The Lufthansa Group recently announced it would create yet another subsidiary in the form of Lufthansa City Airlines, which will operate short-haul Airbus A320 series flights on behalf of the mainline carrier.
Lufthansa has been forced to extend applications to pilots who don’t speak German.
Other subsidiaries with lower operating costs include Lufthansa CityLine which operates regional services, and Eurowings, which is positioned as a pan-European low-cost carrier.
