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* Strike to start 2300 GMT Wed, run until Fri 2259 GMT
* Germanwings expects to operate over 60 pct of flights
* Lufthansa shares rise 0.1 percent, in line with Dax (Adds Germanwings statement, updates shares)
By Victoria Bryan and Harro Ten Wolde
BERLIN, Feb 11 (Reuters) - A long-running row betweenLufthansa management and German pilots unionVereinigung Cockpit (VC) over pay and conditions shows no signof ending soon after the union called for a two-day strike atthe group's budget airline Germanwings.
The VC pilots staged 10 strikes last year, affectinghundreds of thousands of passengers and wiping up to 200 millioneuros ($226 million) from 2014 operating profit at Lufthansa,which is under pressure to reduce costs to keep up with rivals.
The pilots said late on Tuesday the strike, affectingdepartures across Germany, would run from 2300 GMT on the nightof Wednesday Feb. 11 until 2259 GMT on Friday, Feb. 13.
VC said attempts to reach agreement had failed. "Lufthansathus demonstrates again that it does not want an agreement andis therefore responsible for more strikes," said Joerg Handwerg,a spokesman for VC.
Germanwings said it expected to operate more than 60 percentof the 900 flights normally scheduled for the strike period byusing volunteer pilots or chartering planes from other airlines.It expects to be able to fly 80 percent of all its customers.
The row between pilots and management concerns earlyretirement benefits that Lufthansa wants to change for newstarters.
The current scheme enables pilots to retire at 55 and stillreceive a portion of their pay until regular state pensionpayments kick in. Lufthansa wants to increase the earliest ageat which its new pilots can retire to reflect increasing lifeexpectancies and cut costs.
Lufthansa said almost all points of contention for the earlyretirement scheme had been resolved and that a mediator couldhave easily resolved the outstanding issues.
Shares in Lufthansa were up 0.1 percent at 1425 GMT, in linewith a 0.1 percent stronger Dax blue-chip index.
"The positive side of the story is that Lufthansa is drivinga hard bargain for its cost reduction efforts, which mightsucceed in the long term," Equinet analyst Joachen Rothenbacherwrote in a note.
The pilots have also requested that management entermediation talks on plans for the expansion of low-cost flights,which Lufthansa has refused.
The pilots oppose the way in which Lufthansa is pushingthrough the expansion by using a small business that is notsubject to the same collective labour agreements as pilots atits Lufthansa and Germanwings brands.
Like rival Air France-KLM, Lufthansa wants toincrease low-cost operations to win back market share lost tothe likes of Ryanair and easyJet, which areexpanding in its home market.
($1 = 0.8837 euros) (Additional reporting by Peter Maushagen; Editing by GeorginaProdhan and Mark Potter)
