Lufthansa strike hits air travel for second time this month

BERLIN (Reuters) -Ground staff at German airline Lufthansa walked off the job at major airports on Tuesday in their second strike this month, raising pressure in wage talks due to continue on Wednesday.

"If Lufthansa does not realise that it now has to take a big step towards us, then longer strikes will continue to be possible," labour union Verdi's lead negotiator, Marvin Reschinsky, said.

Over 100,000 passengers will be affected by the industrial action, which is due to run until 7:10 am (0610 GMT) on Wednesday, the airline has said.

Lufthansa said it could only operate 10% of scheduled flights at the affected airports, which include the country's biggest hub in Frankfurt as well as Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Duesseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart.

The first flights were cancelled on Monday evening.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has been hit with a number of nationwide strikes affecting air travel, railways and public transport, as workers faced with high inflation demand greater pay.

"The strikes in Germany are pretty annoying at the moment," Martin Pilo, who had just arrived from Singapore but was waiting on luggage, said while standing in one of Frankfurt's terminals, where most Lufthansa check-in counters remained closed.

The latest strike at Lufthansa comes after the airline presented a new wage offer for some 25,000 ground staff workers last week. Verdi described the offer as "blatantly antisocial".

Verdi is demanding a wage rise of 12.5% or at least 500 euros ($538.85) more per month over a 12-month period, plus a one-time payment of 3,000 euros to offset inflation.

These high demands have become necessary as Lufthansa's ground staff has lost 10% of its purchasing power in comparison to 2021, Verdi's Reschinsky said.

($1 = 0.9279 euros)

(Reporting by Reuters TV, Ilona Wissenbach; writing by Nette Nöstlinger; editing by Miranda Murray and Rachel More)