Lufthansa cuts flights

Lufthansa is removing 20,000 short-haul flights from its summer schedule through October as jet fuel prices surge across Europe. (newsroom.lufthansagroup.com) The Lufthansa Group said the cuts equal less than 1% of its available seat kilometers, an industry measure of capacity, and are expected to save more than 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel. The company said fuel prices have doubled since the outbreak of the Iran conflict. (newsroom.lufthansagroup.com) The reductions span the group’s six hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels and Rome. Lufthansa said it is cutting unprofitable short-haul flying from Frankfurt and Munich while expanding some existing routes from Zurich, Vienna and Brussels. (newsroom.lufthansagroup.com) The first wave has already started. Lufthansa said 120 daily flight cancellations took effect on April 20 and run through May 31, with passengers notified, while a revised summer plan for June onward is due in late April or early May. (newsroom.lufthansagroup.com) This is hitting Europe’s busiest travel season after weeks of warnings about fuel supply. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told the Associated Press on April 16 that Europe had “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left if supplies remained blocked by the Iran war. (apnews.com) Airlines have tied the squeeze to disrupted Middle East energy flows and the Strait of Hormuz. Sky News reported that Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary warned this month that fuel supplies could be disrupted from May if the strait did not properly reopen. (news.sky.com) Lufthansa is also using the fuel shock to speed up a broader restructuring. Reuters reported on April 16 that 27 aircraft at its CityLine subsidiary were being permanently withdrawn from service amid rising jet fuel prices and costs from industrial action. (cnbc.com) Sky News reported that Lufthansa plans to retire four Airbus A340-600s in October and ground two Boeing 747-400s for the winter ahead of their final retirement in 2027. Those are older, less fuel-efficient jets than the newer aircraft airlines prefer when fuel gets expensive. (news.sky.com) Lufthansa said passengers will still be able to reach its long-haul network through the group’s hubs, even as the short-haul map gets thinner. The airline’s next schedule update, due within days, will show which summer routes survive the fuel squeeze. (newsroom.lufthansagroup.com)