Lufthansa canceled a total of around 33,000 flights for the coming January and February. Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr announced this to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) before Christmas.
The reason for this is the Omikron variant, which is spreading rapidly in Europe. In the interview with the FAS, Spohr referred to additional travel restrictions and stricter corona controls, which are causing uncertainty among travelers: “From mid-January to February we are seeing a sharp drop in bookings.”
Demand in January was so weak that they could have reduced significantly more flights. “But we have to carry out 18,000 additional, unnecessary flights in winter just to secure our take-off and landing rights,” said the Lufthansa boss.
Lufthansa sends numerous planes into the air without passengers
This means that at the beginning of 2022, numerous flights will only blow up sparsely or even not at all. According to Spohr, exceptions to this rule have already been found in almost all parts of the world during the pandemic, but the EU does not allow this.
Compared to the beginning of the corona pandemic, however, the situation at the largest German airline has eased again. It is encouraging for the company that almost all destinations are now being served again. Around 75 percent of the fleet is currently in use again.
Before Christmas, however, Lufthansa had to cancel some flights due to a wave of illness among its pilots. On the Thursday before Christmas it was announced that six pairs of flights would have to be canceled from the outward and return flights between 23 and 26 December because so many pilots had called in sick.