A spokesman for Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), the union that represents the pilots at Germany's flag carrier airline, said on Tuesday that they could soon call more strikes in addition to the walkout affecting long-haul routes, which began at 0600 UTC, and the strike of short- and medium-haul flights, set to start on Wednesday.

"We cannot rule out further strikes this week," VC spokesman Markus Wahl told reporters at Frankfurt Airport, Lufthansa's main hub on Tuesday. "Strikes are possible in the following weeks as well," he added.

Tuesday's strike - which is to run until just before midnight local time (2159 UTC) -has forced Lufthansa to cancel a total of 84 flights, affecting around 20,000 passengers. That's almost half of the airline's regularly scheduled long-haul flights. Ninety long-haul flights from Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf were expected to go ahead as scheduled.

Despite the disruption the situation appeared to be calm at the affected airports, with few passengers turning up for cancelled flights as the airline had earlier warned them ahead of time, using text messaging and email. Extra service staff was also on hand to assist the few who did turn up for cancelled flights.

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