Lufthansa loses court case over male pilots' headwear

German flag carrier Lufthansa, which faced a pilots' strike on Tuesday, suffered a fresh setback when it lost a labour dispute over whether pilots should have to wear their caps.

The Federal Labour Court backed a pilot who had complained it was unfair to force male pilots to wear their hats in airports as the same rule did not apply to women.

Judges at the tribunal in the central city of Erfurt rejected the airline's argument that the wearing of the navy blue and gold cap before or after a flight was part of company tradition.

The complainant, a pilot based in Munich, took legal action after an incident in 2009 over a flight to New York when he was not wearing his cap, and initially won his case in court.

But a subsequent court ruling found in favour of Lufthansa, which employs some 5,400 pilots, about six per cent of them women.

On Tuesday, Lufthansa pilots forced the cancellation of 50 flights in Frankfurt, Germany's busiest airport, affecting roughly 20,000 passengers, the airline said.