Lufthansa Cargo will fly more than 90 percent of its freighter schedule despite a four-day strike from midnight on Monday Feb. 22 called by the group’s pilots.

The Cockpit Association, representing about 4,500 pilots at Lufthansa’s passenger and cargo divisions as well as budget carrier Germanwings, said that 94 percent of members had voted to strike.

Spokesman Nils Haupt said only two freighter services would be cancelled, Frankfurt-Bahrain-Sharjah-Hong Kong and Frankfurt-Bangalore-Chennai. Seventeen qualified pilots among LC’s management would leave their desks to fly some services and Lufthansa Cargo Charter had also found some alternative solutions for customers, he said.

The bellyhold situation was “more difficult” and LC was in communication with the passenger division, Haupt said. It was contracting additional road feeder services to cover cargo movements where possible within continental Europe.

Haupt expressed frustration at the standoff with pilots since they are unaffected by job reductions elsewhere in the cargo organization. LC is shedding 10 percent of its 650-strong workforce in administration but any decision to made redundancies among its operations and sales personnel will be in strict ratio to volumes carried.

If business grows by 10 percent this year, 5 percent of these groups will lose their jobs. At 20 percent growth there would be zero effect and at 30 percent, LC will be hiring staff.

The pilots’ union said it had called the strike because Lufthansa could not offer job guarantees. Haupt admitted that most of Lufthansa’s cargo growth was currently coming through the “partnership platform” with Jade Cargo and Aerologic, rather than in its core business. But LC had also begun training new pilots to fly its MD-11 freighters—on the same terms as current pilots—because some had transferred to the passenger division.

LC saw an 18.6 percent increase in traffic in January following strong growth in Asian exports to Europe, and has announced a 10 percent rate increase from March 1 following previous increases in October.

Peter Gerber, LC executive board member responsible for finance and human resources, said: “The latest positive developments in our traffic figures still reflect a significant drop in cargo volume compared with the pre-crisis period. It will take still some time to return to the level we achieved in 2007 or 2008.”

The airfreight industry globally had lost four years of growth and the crisis was not yet over, he added. But he hoped Lufthansa Cargo could reduce or phase out short-time working arrangements among its ground staff later this year if the market continued to improve.