Barely a year after Lufthansa expanded operations at Berlin, the carrier has been forced to cut back in a few weeks’ time.
The expansion last summer was designed to coincide with the opening of Berlin’s new Brandenburg airport (BER). But as we have reported before, BER was supposed to have opened last June but has now been delayed indefinitely owing to a host of problems.
In the meantime, Tegel (the city’s main international airport) has become seriously overcrowded with the overspill from BER.
So Lufthansa’s decision to cut a number of underperforming flights and routes is designed to save money and maintain operational integrity at Tegel.
The cuts take effect from March 31. Fortunately the UK gets off relatively lightly. The Berlin Tegel to London Heathrow route loses only one flight a week while Birmingham remains unchanged at a single daily service.
But Berlin-Manchester is axed, and so too are services to Amsterdam, Budapest and Lyon.
In the case of Manchester, Lufthansa’s UK manager Christian Schindler is quoted in thebusinessdesk.com as saying that although his airline wasn’t disappointed with the passenger numbers “the yields were a bit soft because there was so much leisure traffic on the route.”
Other destinations see a 50 per cent cut in frequency. These include Geneva, Milan and Stockholm.
Others such as Bucharest, Helsinki, Moscow Vnukovo and Paris CDG see reductions of around 30 or 40 per cent.
Lufthansa staff are busy rebooking passengers affected by these changes. But it may mean having to change planes en route rather than benefit from non-stop service.
Meanwhile problems remain at BER itself. The latest issue concerns the lighting in and around the terminal. According to a report in Spiegel Online, BER management say that technical problems are preventing them from switching off the airport lighting.
It means that BER’s lighting remains on 24 hours a day even though the airport remains empty of passengers and planes.
What a waste.
For further information visit lufthansa.com.
Report by Alex McWhirter
