Lufthansa pilots have been ordered to end their strike and return to work.<br /><br /> The action has led to the cancellation of around 1,000 flights in an increasingly bitter row over cost cuts and pay.<br /><br /> But a labour court in the federal state of Hesse ruled the stoppage illegal as grievances over Lufthansa’s plans for low-cost expansion were not part of the union’s mandate in talks. <br /><br /> The ruling by the court came too late to revise Wednesday’s flight schedules.<br /><br /> Markus Wahl, spokesman for the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union said it may not mean the end of the strikes: “We have called on our members to be available to fly again at any moment. Lufthansa however must know that despite this verdict, this is not how personnel problems are solved.”<br /><br /> Lufthansa has welcomed the decision and repeated that it must cut costs in order to compete with budget carriers.
