Lufthansa has put an emergency timetable in place for today as pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit calls its members out on strike.

The industrial action started at 00:01 this morning and will last for 24 hours.

The strike is set to affect Lufthansa’s long- and short-haul flights departing from Germany.

However, the carrier expects a total of 2,124 of approximately 3,000 daily flights to take place.

Only 51 of the 876 cancelled flights are intercontinental flights, with approximately 100,000 passengers expected to be affected overall.

In a statement the German flag-carrier said: “Lufthansa apologises to all its customers that are affected by this strike.”

A special flight schedule for the duration of the strike has been enabled on the LH.com website today, allowing customers to verify whether their flight will be taking place as scheduled.

Customers whose flights have been cancelled due to the strike have the one-time option to transfer or cancel their booking.

In addition to this, all passengers travelling with the Group airlines Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, SWISS and Brussels Airlines will have the one-time option to transfer their booking for free, regardless of whether their flight has been cancelled or not.

Lufthansa plans to operate individual routes in spite of the strikes.

Among other destinations, flights are planned from Frankfurt to Chicago, Delhi, Haneda, Houston, Miami and Washington.

A total of three intercontinental flights are scheduled to depart from Munich tomorrow – to San Francisco, Newark and Charlotte.

Other connections, including Hong Kong and Shanghai, are being postponed until Thursday.

The statement added: “Lufthansa has offered mediation to Vereinigung Cockpit on a number of occasions, in order to resolve the wage dispute with the assistance of a neutral third party.

“VC has consistently rejected the offer.

“Instead, VC has now announced a strike that will hurt our customers and colleagues most of all.

“VC is ignoring the possibility of mediation and is avoiding its responsibilities as a social partner.”