* Strike on long-haul to run 0600-2159 GMT Tuesday
* Lufthansa cancels 84 long-haul flights, 90 to run
* Union calls short-haul strike for Wednesday
* Lufthansa expects several hundred cancellations Wed (Adds Lufthansa comment on Wednesday cancellations)
By Victoria Bryan and Peter Maushagen
BERLIN/FRANKFURT, Sept 7 (Reuters) - The German pilots'union will extend its strike at Lufthansa intoWednesday after a walkout already planned for Tuesday in along-running dispute over pay, benefits and cost cuts.
Tuesday's strike, the 13th in 18 months, affects long-haulpassenger and cargo flights out of Germany from 0600 GMT to 2159GMT on Tuesday, while Wednesday's 24-hour strike targetsshort-haul Lufthansa and Germanwings flights, it said on Monday.
Lufthansa said it would operate 90 out of about 170 plannedlong-haul flights for Tuesday and all seven cargo flights thanksto pilots volunteering to work. It expects several hundredflights to be cancelled on Wednesday, when it has 1,350short-haul flights planned.
Lufthansa is trying to cut costs as it battles to maintainmarket share against budget rivals such as Ryanair.
Relations between management and the Vereinigung Cockpit(VC) union, which represents around 5,000 Lufthansa andGermanwings pilots, broke down again last week. The union hasoffered concessions, including increasing the average retirementage to 60 and looking at ways to bring costs down to a levelcomparable with easyJet.
Announcing the Wednesday strike, union spokesman Markus Wahlsaid Lufthansa management had not shown any willingness to reachan agreement. Lufthansa had said earlier on Monday that it hadoffered talks over the weekend, but VC said the offer providedno basis for talks.
As a precondition for talks, VC wants Lufthansa to halt theprocess of employing staff on non-German contracts for theexpansion of its budget Eurowings division, which has anAustrian operating licence.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Lufthansa ChiefExecutive Carsten Spohr said over 1,000 pilots from within thegroup and outside had applied for jobs at Eurowings.
"To create an airline's operating certificate in anothercountry is something the other low-cost carriers do and wecopied that model for our low-cost operation," he said.
Spohr's hard line with the pilots recalls his counterpartWillie Walsh's stance with crew at British Airways and Iberia,where the cost cuts achieved helping parent group IAG to report stronger profits than Lufthansa or Air France-KLM.
However, analysts point out Walsh was negotiating during thefinancial crisis when oil prices were high, whereas Spohr has atougher job amid low oil prices and rising passenger numbers.
IAG is aiming for an operating profit this year in excess of2.2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), while Spohr said on FridayLufthansa would "comfortably" achieve its target for adjustedearnings before interest and tax of over 1.5 billion euros.
That target does not include the impact of strikes, whichhave cost Lufthansa around 100 million euros this year already.
($1 = 0.8975 euros) (Editing by Thomas Atkins and Mark Potter; Editing by TomHeneghan)
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