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Passengers traveling with German flag carrier and Star Alliance founding member 
Lufthansa are set to face considerable operational disruption on Thursday following the announcement of a 24-hour strike. The two-pronged industrial action will see members of two unions walk out tomorrow, with one representing pilots and the other representing cabin crew. Lufthansa has warned passengers that their flights may be disrupted.
With this in mind, the national airline of Germany has struck up a deal with rail operator Deutsche Bahn to allow travelers whose flights are canceled to instead complete their journeys by train on certain routes. Still, there are plenty of corridors that this agreement will not cover, with Thursday looking set to be something of an ordeal for non-covered passengers. The industrial action will impact Lufthansa’s mainline, regional, and cargo arms.
24 Hours Of Industrial Action
Yesterday, the Vereinigung Cockpit trade union, which represents pilots at the German flag carrier, announced that it was calling for its members to go on strike on Thursday, February 12, 2026. The VC has cited the demand for “improvements to company pension schemes” as the driving force behind its decision to call its members to go on strike, with the short notice of the strike likely exacerbating its impact from an operational perspective.
The strike is set to last from 12:01 am to 11:59 pm local time tomorrow, with the VC warning that its members’ strike “will affect all flights departing from German airports” during this window. On its website, Lufthansa is currently advising that it is “reviewing the impact on [its] flight schedule,” but, in any case, extensive disruption is to be expected. With this in mind, it has arranged for domestic passengers to be able to use the train instead:
“In the event of a cancellation of a domestic Lufthansa flight (or a Lufthansa flight between Germany and Basel) within two days before departure, you can exchange your flight ticket into a ticket with Deutsche Bahn free of charge.”
Both Mainline & Cargo Pilots Are Set To Walk Out
Diving deeper into its motivations behind calling its members to take industrial action, the VC says that the strike “stems from the long-running, fruitless negotiations regarding the company pension scheme for pilots at Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo.” With this in mind, it won’t just be pilots operating passenger flights that will walk out tomorrow, but also those flying specialist freight aircraft, such as the 
Boeing 777F pictured above.
The VC has specifically taken issue with the fact that the “capital market-financed model” that was introduced in 2017 “falls significantly short of the previous pension level” offered by the prior scheme that worked more traditionally and had guaranteed payouts. It entered negotiations with Lufthansa in May of 2025, arguing on behalf of its various members that “the company pension scheme is a crucial component of retirement security for pilots.”
However, almost a year later, seven rounds of talkswith Lufthansa are yet to have yielded a satisfactory deal for the VC union and its members. As such, despite the severe short-notice operational disruption that will likely arise as a result, it has called for a strike as a last resort, saying that “it’s up to the employer to take responsibility and submit an offer.” It will be interesting to see if and how Lufthansa ultimately concedes to these demands.
Strikes Cost Lufthansa Group $375m In First Quarter
However, Lufthansa Group still expects a positive summer and the end of the year as it plans to grow its capacity Year-on-Year (YoY).
Regional Traffic Will Also Be Affected
It isn’t just the VC strike that is set to cripple Lufthansa’s operations tomorrow. Indeed, fellow union UFO, which represents flight attendants, has also called for 24 hours of industrial action tomorrow at both the German flag carrier itself and its regional arm, Lufthansa CityLine. The reason for this, as noted by Reuters, is “the employer’s continued refusal to negotiate a collective social plan” amid the planned shutdown of operations at CityLine.
As such, regional departures out of various major Lufthansa hubs located in all parts of Germany are set to be hit hard tomorrow. Disrupted airports will likely include the likes of Berlin (BER), Bremen (BRE), Cologne (CGN), Düsseldorf (DUS), Frankfurt (FRA), Hamburg (HAM), Hanover (HAJ), Munich (MUC), and Stuttgart (STR). According to UFO, 98.33% of its Lufthansa CityLine members voted in favor of taking strike action on Thursday.
