“We have to thin out the 2024 flight schedule”
Lufthansa boss angry about kerosene tax
December 19, 2023, 12:11 a.m
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After the end of the corona pandemic, air traffic in Germany is growing more slowly than in other European countries. The Lufthansa boss is also announcing a thinned-out offer for next year. Spohr doesn’t think anything of the traffic light plans for a kerosene tax.
The German Lufthansa rejects the federal government’s planned taxation of kerosene on domestic flights and fears competitive disadvantages as a result. “Additional taxation within Germany would then act like an economic stimulus program for those traveling outside Germany,” said Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “We are already seeing effects: While air traffic in other European countries, such as France, Spain or Italy, is back at or even above the level of 2019, in Germany we are only reaching 80 percent due to the highest location burden,” criticized Spohr.
The Lufthansa boss added that the federal government had recently emphasized that shifting traffic to hubs abroad would be disadvantageous for Germany and should be avoided. The current political plans are in contrast to this. The aviation tax was only increased drastically in 2020, and last week it was decided to increase aviation security fees by up to 50 percent from 2025. In addition, there would be serious burdens from the EU climate protection policy. “Berlin and Brussels are in the process of increasing costs,” warned Spohr in an interview with the newspaper.
Shortages of personnel and aircraft
The Lufthansa boss also announced that the problems in the aviation industry will continue to burden the company in the coming year. Although demand for air travel is high, it is met with reduced supply. Lufthansa will also suffer from this. As a reason, Spohr cited bottlenecks in personnel and available aircraft. In addition to the aircraft manufacturers’ delivery difficulties, there are now unplanned engine overhauls for a certain engine on the Airbus A320. Over the year, 20 of the 450 aircraft of this type were missing.
“We will adjust the flight schedule for 2024 slightly and slightly reduce the originally planned growth. The same applies to us next year: quality takes precedence over excessive growth – despite the high global demand,” Spohr told the SZ. The aim is to increase quality and eliminate complaints. Spohr: “We always want to be better by the amount that we are more expensive due to our location.”
Lufthansa had to revise its flight schedules in 2022 and 2023 when it restarted after Corona because its own team and service providers could not meet the requirements. Tens of thousands of flights were canceled early, and air traffic in Germany did not grow as quickly as in other European countries.