The union for striking Lufthansa pilots has agreed to suspend the walkout until March 9th, and the 4,000 pilots will return to work.
A spokesman for the Cockpit union said the two sides reached an agreement after a two-hour long hearing at a Frankfurt labour court tonight.
Deutsche Lufthansa agreed to resume talks with the union about their demands without any preconditions.
Lufthansa pilots are concerned that cheaper crews from the company’s smaller airlines in other countries could eventually replace them.
The move ends what was to be a four-day walkout that threatened to cause travel chaos for 10,000 people worldwide. The strike had forced Lufthansa to cancel hundreds of flights.
Passengers left stranded by the strike that started at midnight local time are being rebooked on other airlines or have to take trains for domestic travel, after last-ditch attempts to reach a compromise failed over the weekend.
Nearly half of Lufthansa's 1,800 flights were cancelled and 10,000 passengers affected worldwide.
Some 4,000 German pilots voted for the strike at Lufthansa on concerns the company could try to cut staff costs by shifting jobs to foreign subsidiaries such as Austrian Airlines or Lufthansa Italia, where wages are lower.
The starting salary for a first officer in a Lufthansa cockpit is €62,000, for a captain €115,000, according to the company's recruiting website. Media reports put the top end of pilots' salaries at about €325,000.
Lufthansa's pilots have offered to forgo pay increases if in return they get some control over which routes or pilot jobs are transferred to other group airlines. Lufthansa has rejected that demand, saying it would require ceding control over parts of business strategy to its workers and the union.
Germany's economic recovery stalled at the end of 2009, and workers are becoming increasingly concerned that they could lose their jobs. They are looking to employers to promise job security in exchange for concessions on pay, as carmaker Volkswagen has.
Engineering sector workers have also accepted moderate wage increases to help boost employment prospects.
Over the weekend, the pilots' union offered new talks, but Lufthansa said it would not resume negotiations unless the union dropped demands for what it saw as undue influence on managerial decisions, leaving the two parties in a stalemate.
Agencies