German pilots and crew members went on strike, resulting in the cancellation of nearly 800 flights.

Due to a one-day strike by pilots and crew members over a pension dispute, Germany cancelled nearly 800 flights on Thursday (February 12th), affecting approximately 100,000 passengers.

According to the official websites of each airport, the airports in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf were the most severely affected, but most of the flights at Munich Airport took off on time.

Lufthansa Airlines condemned the strike and its "extremely serious and disproportionate impact" on passengers.

AFP quoted Lufthansa as saying that its main subsidiaries, Lufthansa, Eurowings, Explorer Air and its cargo business, were all affected.

Lufthansa added: "Lufthansa is making every effort to minimize the impact on passengers."

The pilots' union VC and the flight attendants' union UFO both issued strike calls to their members on Tuesday.

The pilots demanded improvements in their retirement benefits, while UFO stated that its members went on strike to protest against Lufthansa's plan to close its CityLine subsidiary and the management's "refusal to negotiate on the collective social welfare plan".

Lufthansa announced a year ago that it would transfer the operation and staff of CityLine to a new subsidiary, stating that this move was aimed at cutting costs in order to control its debt.

Lufthansa's profitability has fallen behind that of its major European rivals, and in September it announced the layoff of 4,000 employees, accounting for approximately 4% of its total workforce.

Lufthansa Group is the largest airline in Europe, and it also includes other airlines such as Swiss Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.