Published on : 13/07/2022 – 16:22
Berlin (AFP) – The German airline group Lufthansa announced on Wednesday the cancellation of 2,000 additional flights this summer, due to a lack of staff, bringing the number of cancellations to more than 7% of flights in July and August from Frankfurt and Munich.
The company “removes 2,000 flights” from and to the “hubs” of “Frankfurt and Munich” planned between “now and the end of August”, a spokesperson for the company said on Wednesday, interviewed by AFP.
This is the fourth wave of cancellations announced by the group, of which 7% of the initial plan of 80,000 flights concerning these two airports this summer has now been cancelled, according to an AFP calculation.
The objective is to “relieve the system”, indicated the spokesman, while the group is penalized by the heavy shortages of labor from which the whole of the aviation sector suffers.
The group stresses, however, that it “tries to exclude connections to classic holiday destinations”. It offers alternative flights as much as possible, provided that “there are several connections during the day” for the same destination”.
Since the lifting of health restrictions at the start of the year, airlines and airports have struggled to meet the sharply rising demand after two years of sluggish traffic during which the sector lost many employees.
These staff shortages concern “especially airports, ground services, aviation security and therefore also airlines”, according to a statement from Lufthansa at the end of June.
The cancellation of flights is therefore the only adjustment variable for airlines. There are “signs that it is working,” the Lufthansa spokesman said on Wednesday.
In Great Britain, airports have been severely disrupted for weeks, with long queues and series cancellations from Easyjet, British Airways, Tui or Wizz Air.
London’s Heathrow airport, the main British “hub”, announced on Tuesday that it would limit the number of departing passengers for two months to 100,000 per day, or 4,000 less than its forecast.
© 2022 AFP