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Lufthansa cabin crew to strike Thursday, Friday

An A380 aircraft stands half inside a hanger at the Lufthansa Technik facility in Frankfurt, Germany November 18, 2015. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa cabin crew have been called to another round of strikes starting Thursday and Friday, the head of trade union UFO, Nicoley Baublies, told Reuters on Monday.

The cabin crew union staged a week of strikes earlier this month, costing the company tens of millions of euros and forcing the cancellation of about 4,700 flights.

Lufthansa said it took note of the strike announcement with "consternation", saying the company had tried to defuse the conflict by inviting all the unions involved in various strike actions at the carrier to a meeting on Dec. 2.

Baublies said that if Lufthansa did not react to the union's demand for more wide-ranging negotiations over pay and conditions, the strike would continue next Monday. He added that it was not yet decided which flights would be affected.

Lufthansa is pushing expansion of low-cost brand Eurowings over growth of its main Lufthansa brand and is trying to introduce new defined-contribution pension schemes and revamp a decades-old programme that allows crews to retire at 55.

Shares in Lufthansa were down 1.9 percent at 13.47 euros (£9.4) by 1356 London time, and were the third-biggest decliners in a 0.4 percent-lower German blue-chip index <.GDAXI>.

(Reporting by Peter Maushagen, writing by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Jonathan Gould and Georgina Prodhan)