FRANKFURT: Lufthansa will cancel almost 900 flights in Germany on Wednesday when airport ground staff are expected to join a strike called by the country’s biggest services union, Verdi, the carrier said.

Some 87,000 passengers will be affected and 895 Lufthansa flights scrapped because of the strikes at Frankfurt, Munich, Duesseldorf, Cologne/Bonn, Dortmund and Hanover airports, it said.

The walkouts are being staged by Verdi members working in air safety control, ground services, at check-in counters and in engineering workshops at the airports.

They are so-called ‘warning’ strikes intended to increase pressure in a battle the union is fighting over wages with local and federal governments.