The German air carrier ‘Deutsche Lufthansa AG’ scrapped approximately 140 flights last week (8th August).

That makes a grand total of around 500 flights that have been cut by the airline this month.  It was forced to cut 360 flights after the regional unit CityLine’s pilot strike.

The CityLine pilots went on strike when campaigning for wage increases.  Despite focussing on Munich, flights in Hamburg and Frankfurt were also affected.

That pilot strike lasted thirty six hours and the chief executive for Lufthansa, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, said that the pilot strikes were threatening to undermine the competitiveness of the airline.

He reportedly told the Neuen Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper that the pilots were actually putting their own jobs at risk with the strike.

According to reports from the Guardian newspaper, the airline industry will be cutting around 7 per cent of flights in the lead up to Christmas.

Lufthansa is certainly not the only airline talking about flight cuts and route changes.  Other airlines, including British Airways, have also been discussing cutting flights as the increasing price of fuel and a slowing economy takes their toll.