Deutsche Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr says Europe’s third-largest airline must hold its nerve and face down striking pilots if it is to deliver meaningful savings and survive as a force in aviation.

Taking on the pilots “is not about being tough” but “about the future of Lufthansa”, Spohr said in Berlin on the eve of a second day of walkouts by cockpit crew. If the company caved in to pay demands it had “no chance of survival”, he said.

Lufthansa cancelled almost 1,900 flights at its mainline operation until midnight on Thursday, wiping out 40% of the timetable, including premium trips to Beijing and Los Angeles, and disrupting travel for more than 215,000 people. Scrapped services may top 2,500 by the end of a third day of action on Friday, when the effect will be limited to short-haul operations.

Harry Hohmeister, who heads Lufthansa’s mainline brand, said separately that each day of strikes had so far cost about €10m, with Friday’s action set to cost half that. Forward bookings had been dented.

A long-running spat over wages, working conditions and the expansion of Lufthansa’s low-cost Eurowings arm reached new levels of bitterness after Spohr sought to block what had been planned as a single day of action. When a Frankfurt labour court dismissed the case and an appeal failed, the union retaliated by extending the protest for two days.

Lufthansa hit back by reviving a two-year-old legal claim against the labour group.

While Spohr has repeatedly offered to bring in a mediator, Vereinigung Cockpit is unwilling to return to talks without an improved pay proposal. The union is seeking a 20% raise for the period 2012-17, or 3.7% a year. Lufthansa has offered 2.5%, or 0.38% annually, to 2018.

‘No Leeway’

“There is no more leeway for even better offers when escalation is what is wanted, as opposed to a solution,” Spohr said. “In the past months we have made all kinds of different and improved offers. The solution can only be arbitration.”

The CEO said he would have to cull more weaker routes, which Lufthansa is already doing, if he accepted the union proposal and costs rose.

The company has also faced opposition from cabin crew at Eurowings, who walked out on Tuesday at a cost of 64 flights.

“We want to be able to grow again,” he said. “That’s what we aim for. We want to stop shrinking and start going again. In order to be able to do that, we need competitive structures.”

Stefan Schulte, CEO at Fraport, which runs Lufthansa’s main Frankfurt hub, urged Vereinigung Cockpit to embrace Spohr’s offer of outside mediation. (Bloomberg)

•Photo shows Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr.

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