Low-cost carriers (LCCs) and their bargain fares were welcomed when they first arrived in Germany.

But now they are out of favour with environmentalists, Lufthansa and some politicians.

The Green Party wants all domestic aviation scrapped (it would rather travellers go by train) while Lufthansa regularly complains about their prices, some of which it claims are too inexpensive (any maybe not as cheap as those sold by its Eurowings LCC subsidiary).

Now the Christian Social Union party (the counterpart to the Christian Democratic Union, and the dominant party in Bavaria) wants to impose a “penalty” tax for LCC flights within Europe, reports TheLocal.de.

Although the amount has not been decided it would be in addition to the taxes/fees/charges which are already applied to the cost of air tickets in Germany. The CSU will present its paper next Tuesday.

Meanwhile it was reported by Germany’s Airliners.de that Easyjet will axe its flights between Berlin Tegel and Warsaw in November, the final flight date being November 3.

Easyjet is not saying why it is withdrawing from the route which can provide air service whose journey time is far shorter than the train.

I suspect there are several reasons. One being “flight shame” with more eco travellers taking the train, another being that Polish airline LOT uses smaller aircraft, and the third being that LOT can transfer passengers onto its network at Warsaw.

In other words LOT is acting in a sixth-freedom capacity, like Dutch carrier KLM, whereby short routes are operated as feeders for lucrative international services.

As a point-to-point airline operating only daily flight Easyjet lacks these advantages.

Currently LOT serves the routes three times a day and according to the carrier’s website this will increase to four later this year.

easyjet.com, lot.com