LUFTHANSA canceled 15 China flights today, including a flight from Shanghai to Frankfurt, due to a strike called by ver.di, one of Germany's largest trade unions.

Flight LH729 was scheduled to take off from the Pudong International Airport at 1:15pm but was cancelled in the morning.

Other canceled flights affect travelers to and from Beijing, Nanjing, Qingdao and Shenyang.

Nearly 2,000 Lufthansa flights around world were cancelled yesterday. Lufthansa released the list of cancelled flights on Saturday evening.

"Nearly all Lufthansa flights within Germany and Europe will be cancelled," said Lufthansa in a statement. Only 20 of the 1,650 short-haul flights would operate on Monday.

Massive cancellations and delays of long-haul flights are expected to last until next Tuesday.

According to Lufthansa, its operation at Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Norderstedt, Nuremberg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hanover airports would be affected by the announced strike. Customers were urged to check their flight status before travel.

The ver.di trade union called for a full-day strike yesterday to put more pressure on Lufthansa before their next round of collective bargaining for 33,000 Lufthansa employees later this month.
In their last round of negotiation this week, Lufthansa rejected the union's demand of a wage increase of 5.2 percent for the next 12 months and job guarantees.

"With this refusal, and its scandalous offer, the employer provoked a renewed warning strike," said Christine Behle, a board member of ver.di.

The strike, however, was condemned by Lufthansa as "excessive" and "inflicting massive damages."