FRANKFURT, March 19 (Reuters) - Lufthansa pilotsstarted a walkout on the airline's lucrative long-haul flightson Thursday, the second of three days of strike action, aimingto pressure management in a row over early retirement benefitsand cost-cutting efforts.
Lufthansa is trying to bring its costs down to levels nearerthose of its rivals. The airline is being squeezed by low-costcarriers Ryanair and easyJet on Europeanshort-haul routes and by airlines such as Turkish andEmirates on long-haul.
Lufthansa has cancelled 84 of its planned 153 long-haulflights for Thursday, affecting 18,000 passengers, a spokesmansaid.
Pilots at its cargo arm are also on strike but Lufthansasaid it was able to carry out all planned cargo flights usingvolunteer pilots or shifting times slightly.
Late on Wednesday night, pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit(VC) said they were extending the strike action to Friday, thistime on short and medium-haul flights at the group's namesakebrand.
Neither side shows any sign of backing down, and industrywatchers say the row has the potential to run for a long time.
The pilots said Lufthansa was trying to erode the qualitiesthat had made it into a successful global airline.
Lufthansa responded by saying the pilots were damaging areputation that had taken years to build.
The row involves early retirement benefits that VC wants tokeep but which Lufthansa wants to change for new starters. Thepilots also want Lufthansa to enter joint mediation on a numberof other outstanding issues, such as pay and bringing costs downon flights to tourist detsinations.
Lufthansa has said it will enter mediation only on the earlyretirement benefit talks.
The strike does not affect flights at units Austrian, Swiss,Germanwings, Eurowings or Air Dolomiti. (Reporting by Victoria Bryan and Peter Maushagen; Editing byGeorgina Prodhan)