German airline Lufthansa to cancel flights over strike

German airline Lufthansa was forced Tuesday to cancel 895 flights due to an airport strike action planned for Wednesday.

Airport ground workers are expected to join the strike called by the labor union Verdi, Lufthansa stated on Tuesday.

About 40 percent of approximately 1,500 flights to and from German airports have been cancelled by the one-day walkout, it said.

Some 87,000 passengers will be affected at airports in Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Cologne-Bonn, Dortmund and Hanover.

The airline said its affected customers could either reschedule their flights or take trains instead for intra-Germany routes free-of-charge.

The labor union is organizing strikes at the airports as part of a wider dispute over payment involving German federal and local government workers.

Lufthansa, however, has been in industrial dispute with labor unions for a long time, going as far back as 2013, when the company decided to take measures to cut costs.

The airline has also seen more than a dozen pilot strikes in the past two years.

Both pilots and cabin crews of Lufthansa held strikes in the past year that caused huge loss in operating profit for the airline.

The pilots' labor dispute still remains unsettled. The airline made its latest offer to pilots last week.

Low fuel prices, however, has been a main factor for Lufthansa's profit.

Lufthansa announced in March that low oil prices had sent its profits soaring in 2015. Figures released by the airline showed that net profit rose to €1.7 billion (about USD 1.9 billion) in 2015, from just €55 million a year earlier.

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