Pilots at German airline Lufthansa on Sunday ignored appeals to abandon plans for a four-day strike that will force the cancellation of some 3,200 flights and snarl aviation worldwide. The Cockpit Association, which has called the biggest airline strike in Germany's history, said it assumed the strike was on, despite a last-minute appeal by managers for talks, dpa reported. Lufthansa says it will offer a skeleton service from Monday to Thursday, employing pilots who normally work in the management and are no longer in the union. Its subsidiary Swiss and its Star Alliance partner LOT of Poland are to fly bigger planes in and out of Germany this week to make up some of the shortfall. Germany has never suffered disruption of its air traffic on such a scale. Lufthansa carries 150,000 passengers a day, or 55 million a year. The most recent data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), for 2008, indicates it is the world's top full-price international carrier by passenger numbers.
