Berlin - Pilots at Lufthansa's budget airline Germanwings are set to launch a new round of industrial action on Thursday just as rail services in Germany were slowly returning to normal after a 14-hour nationwide stoppage by train drivers.
The 12-hour strike from 10h00 GMT by Germanwings pilots is expected to result in up to 100 flights being cancelled.
Traffic at airports in Cologne/Bonn, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Hanover, Hamburg and Stuttgart will be affected.
Germanwings is making arrangements to minimise the disruption to services for passengers returning on flights from the Mediterranean, an airline spokesman said.
The is part of a long-running industrial dispute between Lufthansa and its more than 5 000 pilots over the airline's plans to scrap its early retirement scheme for pilots.
Lufthansa wants to end the plan as it steps up a cost-cutting plans aimed at boosting profit in the face of tough competition in the international aviation industry.
The Germanwings pilots' action comes just as the nation's railway company Deutsche Bahn was struggling to get rail services across the country back to normal after train drivers walked off the job over a pay dispute.
“We will try as soon as possible to resume normal operations,” a railway spokesman said after the rail drivers' ended their strike at 02h00 GMT.
Sapa-dpa