A strike by Lufthansa pilots has entered its third day, and is affecting around 100,000 passengers after 850 more flights were cancelled.<br /><br /> Eighteen hundred flights had already been cancelled causing misery for travellers.<br /><br /> Lufthansa said on Friday it had made a new offer to try and break the deadlock, including a pay rise of 4.4 percent and plans to create new jobs.<br /><br /> The airline said it had offered to create 1,000 jobs for junior pilots and up to 600 pilot traineeships over the next five years.<br /><br /> The union has yet to respond to the offer, but it had been demanding an average annual pay increase of 3.7 percent for 5,400 pilots in Germany over a five-year period. <br /><br /> The walkout – the 14th since early 2014 – began on Wednesday and has already grounded some 2,600 planes and affected more than 315,000 passengers. Lufthansa has said the disruption has started to hit medium-term bookings.<br /><br /> A Vereinigung Cockpit pilots’ union spokesman defended the disruption to travel. <br /><br /> “As this affects many people, many clients, it would of course be very, very desirable to be able to end this conflict in a different manner. But for that you need a compromise, and compromise is only possible when one is prepared to move in the direction of the other party,” Joerg Handwerg said.<br /><br /> At Frankfurt airport one man described how his tour group was being treated.<br /><br /> “We are a large group and now we have to divide ourselves onto three different planes so that we will probably only arrive this evening,” the man said.<br /><br /> Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr has said the carrier’s future would be on the line if pilots’ wages were raised to the level demanded.<br /><br /> The airline says it must cut costs to compete with its leaner rival such as short haul budger carrier Ryanair and long haul carriers such as Emirates.<br /><br /> Lufthansa pilots are well paid by industry standards. A pilot at Lufthansa earns on average 180,000 euros a year before tax, though a captain on the highest pay level can earn as much as 22,000 euros a month before tax.<br />
