Germany's flag carrier is bracing itself for massive delays and flight cancellations as pilots voted to go on a four-day strike starting Monday.
Pilots for German airline Lufthansa voted Wednesday to go on a four-day strike starting at midnight Monday, after negotiations for higher pay broke down in Frankfurt.

The strike is also expected to affect both Lufthansa's cargo operations and its low-cost subsidiary Germanwings.
Trade union Cockpit had been looking for a one-year salary agreement with a 6.4 percent pay increase, in addition to guarantees against outsourcing of jobs to lower-paid subsidiaries. Stalled talks over the pay increase fell apart in December after seven months.

More than 90 percent of the union representing Lufthansa pilots voted in favor of the action, which will involve the airline's 4,500 flight deck members.
Massive travel delays expected
The airline is bracing itself for massive delays and flight cancellations, similar to the disruptions experienced when a four-month strike crippled the fleet in 2001.
Lufthansa spokesperson Andreas Bartels told Deutsche Welle that the airline was already making preparation for the strike.
"We of course informed our customers, and on the domestic routes we offer them tickets for the railways, and rebooking on other airlines," said Bartels.
Lufthansa also plans to reorganize passengers from several smaller flights onto larger aircraft.
However, Lufthansa hasn't given up hopes for a compromise with the union, Bartels said.
"We are very open for negotiations. What we want is to come back to the table to find a constructive solution."
Germany's flag carrier has seen passenger numbers drop in the last year due to the economic downturn. 
 
 ________________________________
 
Lufthansa faces a damaging four-day strike by its pilots next week in an escalating confrontation that could hit its plans to counter the worst downturn in aviation history.
The industrial action announced by Vereinigung Cockpit, the pilots’ trade union, would be among the most severe in recent German history if it goes ahead.
Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline by revenues, condemned the move as “disproportionate”. Cockpit said more than 4,000 pilots were being asked to stop work from midnight on Sunday, threatening disruptions for tens of thousands of Lufthansa passengers and costs running into of millions of euros for the company .
The Lufthansa pilots’ action adds to a wave of industrial unrest in the European airline sector as managers attempt to cut costs.
Among other high-profile confrontations, British Airways faces the threat of action by its cabin crews, after only narrowly avoiding a strike before Christmas.
Highlighting the harsh operating environment, Germany’s statistical office reported that the number of passengers starting or finishing air journeys in the country dropped last year by 7.5m or 4.5 per cent – the largest fall in commercial aviation history.

European View
IG Metall, the German engineering and metalworkers union and the country’s biggest, has recently adopted a most responsible stance with employers by moderating its wage demands in exchange for job security.
The result has been that Volkswagen has now guaranteed the jobs of its 100,000 German salaried workers until 2014. Daimler has gone even further by guaranteeing the jobs at its biggest domestic plant for the next 10 years.
This pragmatic approach does not seem to have inspired Lufthansa’s pilots, who on Wednesday called a four-day strike in their campaign to secure a big pay rise. The strike risks grounding the country’s flag carrier when the airline industry is in the doldrums.
Lufthansa’s pilots can hardly be regarded as low-paid workers – indeed quite the opposite. Nonetheless they are not only insisting on a 6.4 per cent wage rise but also on rock hard job guarantees. They are clearly flying in cloud cuckoo skies. More European View here

Cockpit said its main goal was to secure jobs in Germany, which it argued were being threatened by Lufthansa’s increasing reliance on recently bought foreign subsidiaries such as Austrian Airlines or British Midland.
It was prepared to help Lufthansa in cutting costs to counter the downturn, including if needed a “pay freeze,” but accused Lufthansa of not submitting an offer for negotiation
Ilona Ritter, a Cockpit official, said the four-day strike – which will also affect Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings, its low-cost carrier – was justified after months of fruitless talks but “Lufthansa could end this very quickly if they come to us”.
Cockpit said strike action had been supported by about 94 per cent of those who had taken part in a ballot.
But Lufthansa said Cockpit’s demands went beyond job guarantees and would impinge on management decision making, adding that it had made “numerous” suggestions for protecting staff positions.
The German airline pledged “to do everything to keep the impact on customers and guests as small as possible”.
In 2001 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former foreign minister, mediated in a strike over pay called by Cockpit.
Lufthansa’s operating profit in the first nine months of last year fell to €226m ($308m), compared with €954m in the same period in 2008. To offset the slump in air travel, Lufthansa has said it plans to cut €1bn in annual costs by the end of 2011.
Additional reporting by Pilita Clark in London