FRANKFURT, Germany, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of flights have been cancelled on Friday at the Frankfurt airport due to the strike of Lufthansa cabin crew.
According to the website of the Lufthansa Airline, the largest airline in Germany, around 200 flights have been cancelled as the cabin crew put on a strike from 5 a.m. (GMT 0300) to 1 p.m. (GMT 1100) local time at the Frankfurt airport.
The airline said in a press release that the call to strike action forced Lufthansa to cancel a majority of flights from and to Frankfurt. The cancellations affected mostly short- and medium-haul flights and delays would be anticipated throughout the day.
"Lufthansa sincerely regrets that the labor dispute is being waged at the expense of its customers," said the airline.
It also foresaw irregularities in flight operations from and to Frankfurt after the end of the strike.
The German trade union UFO, which represents the cabin crew of Lufthansa, called the strike because the airline had not agreed to meet their demands.
The union has been negotiating with the airline for 13 months, asking for a 5-percent pay rise for more than 18,000 cabin crew of Lufthansa.
The strike at the Frankfurt airport might be a beginning, UFO head Nicoley Baublies was quoted by local media as saying, warning of more strikes.
Robert A. Payne, manager of the International Press Department of the airport, told Xinhua that both inbound and outbound flights had been affected and they would try to make the situation comfortable for passengers.
Lufthansa suffered a loss of 168 million euros (around 210 U.S. dollars) during the first half of 2012, an interim financial report showed.
The airline launched a program at the beginning of 2012 to bring about a sustainable, structural improvement in earnings of 1.5 billion euros (1.9 billion dollars). The group sought to cut expenses by 25 percent "largely by cutting staff costs."
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