Lufthansa pilots in Germany began a two-day strike on Wednesday, grounding some 1,800 flights at one of Europe's largest airlines in a long-running pay dispute. 


The Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots' union initially called a 24-hour walkout for Wednesday, but extended the strike for an extra day after two courts rejected attempts by Lufthansa to halt the industrial action. 


Lufthansa, led by CEO Carsten Spohr, insists that despite a record profit in 2015, it has no choice but to cut costs to compete with leaner rivals such as Ryanair on short-haul and Emirates on long-haul flights. 


Shares in the company have lost 12 percent of their value this year, but were up 1.2 percent at 1309 GMT, outperforming German blue chips, which were down 0.5 percent. 


Lufthansa cancelled 876 of roughly 3,000 flights scheduled by its group airlines for Wednesday, and scrapped 912 flights for Thursday, affecting over 215,000 passengers in what is the 14th strike in the dispute since early 2014. 


Lufthansa's CEO has said he expects the strike to cost between 7 million euros and 9 million euros ($7.4 million to $9.6 million) a day. 


The strike started at midnight and affects flights departing from German airports, including 133 long-haul flights

Source: NNA