The NATO maneuvers from June 12th to 23rd over Europe are giving airlines headaches. Now Lufthansa wants permission for later and earlier take-offs and landings in the two weeks of June.
Jens Bischof spoke first. “I’m a little worried about the NATO maneuvers that will be held in two weeks in June,” said the Eurowings boss in February. We know that during this time “it will be much narrower than usual in the air,” said Bischof. “Especially in the upper airspace, sectors will be closed to a certain extent.”
The maneuver from June 12 to 23 is called Air Defender 2023. “It will be the largest deployment exercise in NATO’s history to date,” the Bundeswehr announced. Under the leadership of the Luftwaffe, “air warfare operations in European airspace are being trained”. 10,000 exercise participants from 18 nations with up to 210 aircraft are taking part in the exercise in Europe’s skies – airline bosses are worrying us.
NATO maneuver worries airlines: Lufthansa wants to relax night flight bans
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr said in a conversation this week with a view to the manoeuvre: “In politics, especially at state level, we are committed to more flexibility in the night flight bans and also to securing slots during this period.”
Lufthansa therefore wants to ensure that airlines do not lose their slots, i.e. time slots for take-offs and landings, if they cannot use them when the airspace is closed. And the company wants planes to land and take off late and early during Air Defender when they’re not otherwise allowed. Then flights could take place that are canceled at other times due to the maneuver.
The nations participating in Air Defender 2023 will mainly operate from the locations Jagel/Hohn in Schleswig-Holstein, Laage in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Wunstorf in Lower Saxony, Lechfeld in Bavaria, Spangdahlem in Rhineland-Palatinate, Volkel in the Netherlands and Čáslav in the Czech Republic . The three main exercise airspaces will be over Schleswig/Hohn, Wunstorf and Lechfeld.
This article was written by Timo Nowack