Lufthansa pilots in Germany said they will extend strike action until Saturday and target long-haul flights, further raising pressure on management in a long-running pay dispute. One of Europe's biggest airlines, Lufthansa has already grounded nearly 1,800 flights since pilots represented by the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union went on strike on Wednesday, disrupting travel plans for more than 315,000 passengers. The strike had originally been planned as a 24-hour walkout but has now been extended three times. Lufthansa said earlier Thursday that it will scrap 830 short- and medium-haul flights Friday, just over a quarter of its schedule, hitting more than 100,000 travellers. Most long-haul flights will be unaffected on Friday, it said. On Saturday, however, all long-haul flights leaving Germany until midnight will be affected, VC announced, without being more specific. VC said comments by Lufthansa CE Carsten Spohr that the carrier's future would be on the line if pilots' wages were raised "amount to a completely exaggerated dramatization." Harry Hohmeister, a Lufthansa board member, said cancellations for the first two days of strike action had cost the airline about E20m and customers were making fewer bookings. "Not only have we suffered severe damage (from the strike), but we're also noticing from mid-term booking numbers that customer behaviour is changing," Hohmeister said.<br/>
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The DGCA's draft proposal, which threatens to cancel the licenses of airline pilots who call in sick and refuse duty "on a periodic basis", was given a thumbs down by the Air India (AI) chairman Ashwani Lohani who found it to be detrimental to air safety. "The chairman sent a letter to the DGCA on Tuesday stating his fears over the repercussions it would have on air safety," said an AI source. ohani's letter is significant given that the Air India would have benefited commercially with the implementation of the said controversial draft. Air India is one of the two Indian carriers whose pilots are grouped together under a registered union (the other is Jet Airways) and so has faced the brunt of protests in the past. "But there can be no compromise on air safety and it doesn't help an airline if it's pilots are stressed over such issues," he added. Wednesday is the DGCA deadline to send comments over the draft. What pummelled the draft though was the six-page strong reply sent on Tuesday to the DGCA by the pilots union of Air India and Jet Airways, which together represents over 3000 airline pilots. The letter said the draft will "greatly imperil air safety" and exposed some of the brow-raising rostering practices followed by cockpit crew-starved airlines. It challenged the DGCA to carry out a survey of the number of pilots in each airline vis-a-vis the number and type of aircraft, and to publish the same.<br/>