Lufthansa and its subsidiary Eurowings have been forced to cancel around 1,000 flights next month, due to ongoing disruption affecting both the carriers and their hub airports.
The group said that Lufthansa had removed 900 domestic and intra-European flights during July from its hubs at Frankfurt and Munich, mainly affecting services on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and equating to around five per cent of weekend capacity.
In addition Eurowings has removed “several hundred flights” from the system in order to “stablise its service for July”.
Lufthansa said that affected passengers would be informed and rebooked onto other flights “to the best of their ability”, or alternatively customers could “travel to airports within Germany”.
The carrier also urged travellers to arrive at airports “on time” during the forthcoming holiday season, and recommended that customers use digital services, online check-in and evening-before check-in, as well as reducing hand luggage “to the bare minimum”.
In a statement provided to Business Traveller the group said:
“After a good two years of the pandemic, Lufthansa Group airlines are reporting a surge in demand for air travel this summer. This is good news after the worst crisis in aviation.
“At present, however, the infrastructure has not yet been fully restored. The entire aviation industry, especially in Europe, is currently suffering from bottlenecks and staff shortages. The situation affects airports, ground handling services, air traffic control, and airlines.
“Lufthansa and Eurowings have implemented numerous measures to ensure the most outstanding possible stability of the flight schedule and thus offer their customers the best possible planning security. However, it is foreseeable that the flight schedules will not be able to be flown as hoped due to the bottlenecks.”
The move comes as airlines worldwide are being forced to cut schedules as the aviation industry struggles to ramp up services following the easing of travel restrictions.
British Airways and Easyjet have cancelled hundreds of flights in recent weeks, and long queues and delays are being reported at airports across the UK.
