The tally is approximately 20,000 fewer flights by October, for a savings of more than 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel. Lufthansa Group made the cut official on Monday 21 April with a statement on its newsroom, and the figure alone tells how much the European sky has changed since the beginning of the conflict with Iran.
The price of jet fuel has doubled since the outbreak of the conflict, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz acting as the detonator. Lufthansa responded with the most drastic move among major global carriers, with around 120 daily flights canceled – starting Monday – and the suspension of less profitable routes from Munich and Frankfurt until the end of the summer season – scheduled for mid-October.
CityLine in the crosshairs, even as the group expands elsewhere
The group’s overall capacity drops by less than one percent in terms of available seat-kilometres. The paradox is that while cutting back to Frankfurt and Munich, routes from Zurich, Vienna and Brussels are expanding. The group, in practice, is reorganizing its structure.
The cuts affect all six of the group’s hub airlines: Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and ITA Airways. The largest share falls on Lufthansa CityLine, the regional division which was already scheduled to close in 2027 and which is now being liquidated early. Destinations already confirmed as being canceled by Frankfurt include Bydgoszcz and Rzeszów in Poland and Stavanger in Norway, while ten routes — including Cork, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Stuttgart, Trondheim and Wroclaw — are being redirected to other hubs in the group.
The detailed plan for optimizing the offer from June onwards will be published at the end of April. Meanwhile, the company assures that the fuel supply for the next few weeks is guaranteed.
Brussels, the move on reimbursements that is causing discussion
The announcement comes as European transport ministers meet in Brussels to avoid a structural shortage of jet fuel at continental airports. EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas, after a video conference with the transport ministers of the member states, ruled out mass cancellations in the summer, specifying that emergency stocks could be released if necessary — but that at the moment the market is holding up to the pressure. On the passenger rights front, he clarified that high fuel prices do not give companies the right to avoid the compensation provided for by European Regulation EC 261/2004.
The European Commission presents its jet fuel package on Wednesday. Measures under consideration include mandatory minimum stocks for member states, a new European observatory on transport fuels and the import of Type A jet fuel from the United States — a product so far incompatible with European standards, on which Brussels is considering technical exemptions. In the background, a structural fact that no emergency measure can resolve in the short term: approximately 20% of the aviation fuel consumed in the EU passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and credible alternatives do not yet exist.
