Lufthansa strike: What are your rights?

Lufthansa is at risk of canceling about 90% of its 1000+ daily flights starting today (midnight Thursday, Germany time), including its Canadian routes. It’s due to a strike by its pilots and flight attendants. It’s going to be chaos, but passengers have many rights (that so many people sadly don’t know about).

You have the right to free rebooking (even on a competitor), meals and hotels (which you should always get for free anyway), and even 600 EUR in cash as damages (per person)!!!

It’s so little-known, as mentioned in our teaser in January. Flytrippers aims to help you travel for less through our 3 types of content, namely flight deals, travel rewards, and tips/inspiration/news.

Here’s what you need to know about the Lufthansa strike.

What caused the Lufthansa strike?

There’s nothing more European than a good old strike!

Lufthansa is facing a major strike by its pilots AND its flight attendants. Simultaneously.

It’s part of their contract negotiations, as usual.

Which flights are affected by the Lufthansa strike?

The German flag carrier operates several routes between its country (Munich, Frankfurt) and Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, Montréal).

The Montréal–Munich route is actually one of the best for traveling in a luxurious lie-flat business class pod seat at the guaranteed fixed price of 60,000 Aeroplan points (I did it among my 9 business class flights of 2025); we often spot these seats for you in our new section.

Most of these Canadian flights seem canceled, like about 90% of all the major airline’s flights.

You can obviously go check your flight status on the Lufthansa website if you hadn’t gone to manage your booking to receive alerts (you always should; it’s really the basics of taking a plane).

How long will the Lufthansa strike last?

The strike is for 1 day only (24 hours); it’s not an indefinite strike like the situations here with Air Canada in August and Air Transat in December.

But the residual effects will obviously be felt for a few days, considering that a fleet of 200+ planes stopped at the last minute like that… means aircraft and crews will be out of position.

And also, there’s obviously not an unlimited number of seats to instantly rebook the thousands of passengers who need to be rebooked.

What are your rights during the Lufthansa strike (or any other cancellation)?

When I gave you a reminder of important things about flight disruptions in January, I mentioned a detailed guide.

I’ll give you a more synthesized teaser here for the strike, but it applies to all canceled flights (canceled by an airline, obviously… not by you).

There are 3 aspects that lots of people often confuse:

• Rebooking to complete the trip (or full refund in cash)
• Reimbursement of expenses incurred (hotels, meals, etc.)
• Cash compensation as damages

Here’s an overview of the 3.

Rebooking to complete the trip (or full refund in cash)

As soon as an airline cancels your flight, you always have the right to choose either:

• A rebooking on another flight (or even another airline)
• A full cash refund (not in travel credit)

Always! Sometimes (often) airlines will push uninformed travelers to accept a refund.

Because that obviously costs them so much less than paying for a last-minute plane ticket on a competitor!!! And because it works: so many people sadly don’t take the time to know their rights.

I didn’t mention it yesterday with the cancellation of all flights to Cuba, because packages are more complex (it’s another of the very many reasons why it’s so much better to book on your own, independently).

Reimbursement of expenses incurred (hotels, meals, etc.)

To avoid having to pay a penny out of pocket, there are 2 very distinct ways:

• Credit card insurance (much simpler and better)
• Passenger rights (much less simple and less good)

If you’re a savvy traveler, you always pay for your flights with a good travel credit card, and you automatically and freely get flight delay insurance.

It gives you free hotels and meals (500 CAD or 1000 CAD, depending on the card). For all your flights, regardless of the country. Strikes are covered (like weather and the most frequent cancellation causes).

Above all, you get this without any effort. Without having to wait in line. Without getting a very ordinary hotel. Without having to limit yourself to a meal allowance that’s too low. Without having to fight for reimbursement.

And while also earning lots of points for future free travel. It’s one of the simplest tips that exists (and yet it’s so little-known). I talked about it again in my article about my canceled train, and I’ll share the follow-up very soon.

But if you didn’t know this tip, it’s okay in this case, thanks to passenger rights.

During strikes, European airlines must reimburse you for any expenses incurred. It’ll just be more complex and slower than the easy insurance claim.

Cash compensation as damages

Travelers often confuse these 2 distinct payments:

• Expense reimbursement (previous section)
• Simple monetary compensation (not to reimburse you)

Getting cash is so easy, but sooooo many people don’t even know it. It’s so sad.

It doesn’t apply everywhere, though. Canada and the European Union are the 2 main jurisdictions that require airlines to give compensation, but the eligible cancellation reasons are much more generous in the EU.

By the way, you can choose to claim via the EU instead of via Canada, of course! As soon as your flight departs from Europe on any airline, or if your flight is operated by a European airline, both regimes apply, and you should choose the most advantageous one.

Obviously, in situations where EU compensation is more generous, airlines will often try to make you believe that it’s Canadian compensation that applies. And, again, it works because so many people don’t know about it.

Anyway, the EU explicitly includes internal strikes (strikes by the airline’s employees). So if your flight is canceled, you’re entitled to 600 EUR in cash per passenger (or 250 EUR to 400 EUR for shorter flights, like intra-Europe). As simple as that.

It’s super easy to claim too, unlike the total failure that is Canada’s passenger protection regime. The only time I had the chance of having a flight canceled in Europe, I claimed it easily and got the money very quickly.

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Summary

German airline Lufthansa must cancel almost all its flights today because of a simultaneous strike by its pilots and flight attendants. Fortunately, it lasts only 1 day. And you have lots of rights if you’re affected! Don’t leave money on the table.

What would you like to know about the Lufthansa strike? Tell us in the comments below.

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Featured image: Munich, Germany (photo credit: Jan Antonin Kolar)