The Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union on Sunday announced that a Germany-wide strike would take affect on Monday and Tuesday and would apply to Lufthansa flights.

Short and medium-haul passenger flights between Monday, December 1, midday German time (1100 UTC/GMT) to just before midnight on Tuesday would be affected, as well as long-haul flights from between 3 a.m. local time Tuesday, to just before midnight. Flights of Lufthansa Cargo would also be affected at the same times on Tuesday.

The strikes, which had earlier been indicated as likely by Cockpit, center on a long-running dispute with Lufthansa over the airline's plans to gradually increase the age at which pilots can take early retirement by five years.

Currently pilots can retire at 55 and receive up to 60 percent of their pay until the normal pension kicks in at the age of 65. The union wants this status quo to continue for all pilots. The parties had held of negotiations since the since the previous round of strikes in October.

In a statement released Sunday, the union held Lufthansa's management responsible that the points of conflict could not be solved.

Pilots for Lufthansa have already staged eight walkouts this year, which according to the airline cost the company some 170 million euros ($211.62 million) in lost revenue.

Lufthansa's budget subsidiary airline Germanwings would not be affected by Monday and Tuesday's strikes.

se/msh (Reuters, dpa)