Lufthansa pilots suspend strike, but chaos continues

FRANKFURT - A planned four-day walkout by 4,000 Lufthansa pilots that disrupted travel for thousands of people was cut short after 12 hours yesterday when the airline and its union agreed to hold talks, both sides said.

But the strike that started at 6 a.m. Philadelphia time was just the tip of the travel chaos iceberg.

Also yesterday, five unions representing French air traffic controllers announced a four-day strike of their own, starting today.

British Airways P.L.C., meanwhile, faced a renewed threat of cabin crew strikes, after the Unite union announced that most of its members had voted in favor of a walkout.

Some 10,000 passengers of Lufthansa and subsidiary Germanwings were upended by the pilots' strike.

Anticipating the strike, Lufthansa had canceled its daily flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, through Thursday, and rebooked passengers on US Airways Group's daily flight from Philadelphia, or on other carriers flying out of Newark, N.J., said airline spokeswoman Jennifer Janzen.

Janzen said passengers who were booked on other airlines for flights today should proceed with those alternate arrangements, and passengers who are scheduled to travel tomorrow and Thursday should check lufthansa.com for updates.

The threatened French controllers strike is forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights at Paris' Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports. France's DGAC aviation authority ordered airlines to cancel 50 percent of the flights at Orly and 25 percent of the flights at Charles De Gaulle.

US Airways, which operates a daily flight from Philadelphia to Charles De Gaulle, is "keeping an eye on it. We deal with threats of work stoppages in France often," spokesman Morgan Durrant said yesterday afternoon. "We won't cancel anything unless there is a strike. If there are no air traffic controllers, obviously we would not fly."

Delta has reduced its flights into Paris based on the threatened air traffic control work stoppage. The airline has Philadelphia-Paris flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and all remained scheduled yesterday, said Delta spokesman Anthony Black.

In London, Unite - Britain's biggest labor union - said after the vote that it was not announcing any strike date and its members will meet Thursday to discuss the ballot result before deciding on a strike date.