After a German court ruled against the union on a key contract issue, Lufthansa Airlines said its pilots union had agreed to suspend a four-day work stoppage.

The New York Times reported on Monday that a labor court disagreed with the Cockpit Association's contention that the airline would have to obey German labor laws even for employees that did not work in Germany.

The union agreed to postpone a four-day strike until March 9, after the German court ruling.

Andreas Bartels, the airline spokesman said," It will likely be some days before we are back to normal operations." After As Lufthansa refused to guarantee it would not move some jobs over to lesser paying foreign subsidiaries British Midland and Austrian Airlines, members of the Cockpit Association initially voted to strike.

The airline said that the four-day disruption would have cost $34 million per day, besides the chaos of rearranging schedules and dealing with irate customers.

The Times further said Lufthansa's reprieve came as air traffic controllers in France told civil aviation authorities it would begin a four-day walkout on Tuesday, which is expected to cause cancellations of a quarter of the flights in and out of Charles De Gaulle International Airport. (With Input from Agencies)