Deutsche Lufthansa AG share price down, considers a new offer to pilots, cancels more flights than expected

Deutsche Lufthansa AG plans to make a new offer to its pilots, who are participating in a series of strikes over early retirement benefits. The German airline is considering options to put an end to the pilots walk-outs, which took place three times in a period of two weeks.

“We want to provide the pilots with a more concrete offer, which we will work on over the next few days,” Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr said in an interview, which was cited by Reuters. “This offer will be communicated at the start of next week.” As reported by Bloomberg, Mr. Spohr also added: “We will present a concretization of our existing offer to the union next week and we will also make it available to our pilots directly.”

Lufthansa, the second-biggest airline in Europe has been affected by a series of pilot strikes over the past two weeks in conditions of increasing competition and declining prices. Pilots revealed that their goal is to put the company under pressure for a new agreement related to early retirement benefits after the already existing contracts were cancelled by the airline at the end of 2013.

About 90% of all of Lufthansas pilots are currently represented by the pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit.

Yesterday the company shared that more flights than initially expected will be cancelled due to the pilot strike. As Lufthansa shared in an official statement, it would cancel 140 flights, 30 more than previously expected, which would affect more than 15 000 passengers.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a spokeswoman of Lufthansa commented on the cancellations: “We had to do this in order to make sure flights are ready once the strike is over.”

Deutsche Lufthansa AG lost 0.51% to trade at €13.54 per share at 12:53 GMT, marking a one year change of -1.99%. The company is valued at €6.27 billion. According to the Financial Times, the 25 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Deutsche Lufthansa AG have a median target of €15.25, with a high estimate of €22.20 and a low estimate of €11.00. The median estimate represents a 12.09% increase from the last price of €13.61.