The airline industry has been battered since the start of the coronavirus pandemic
Frankfurt:
“German national carrier Lufthansa will cut ‘about 10 per cent’ of its winter flight plans as the popularity of the Omicron variant makes travel uncertain,” said chief executive Carsten Spohr.
Spohr said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS).
“Above all, we are experiencing passenger shortages in our home markets of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium, because these countries have been hardest hit by the pandemic,” Spohr said. “.
Europe’s largest airline group – which includes Eurowings, Austria, Switzerland and Brussels Airlines – is now running “about 60%” of its flights compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019, carrying “about half” of its passengers , the CEO said.
Spohr said the number of canceled flights would have been higher if the group hadn’t run an additional 18,000 “additional, unnecessary flights just to secure our right to land and take off”.
The airline industry has been battered since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with countless flights taking place in 2020 as countries close their borders.
The European Airports Association ACI Europe estimated on Thursday that the number of passengers passing through its members has dropped by 20% since November 24, when the Omicron variant was first reported to the Organization. World Health.
Germany has placed stricter limits on travelers from the UK and South Africa, among other places, where the new variant has caused an increase in the number of cases.
The unexpected headwind to the industry also prompted Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair to cut its planned schedule for January by 33% this week.
Across the Atlantic, American Airlines says it’s running an average of more than 5,000 flights a day over the Christmas and New Year period – about 86 percent of its flight schedule compared with the same period in 2019.
The company said domestic demand was “very strong”.
Internationally, pandemic-related travel curbs or testing requirements have “a demand-reducing impact,” it added, “and we’ve seen that in a few places.”
The pilot is sick
On Thursday, a Lufthansa spokesman told AFP the airline had canceled a number of transatlantic flights over Christmas, after a higher-than-usual number of pilots fell ill at this point in time. five.
When asked if the absence was related to the Omicron variant, the spokesman said he “couldn’t speculate” as he did not have any information on the cause of the disease.
In total, the airline was forced to cut six flights between December 23 and 26, including routes to Chicago, Boston and Washington.
A Lufthansa spokesman said the staffing shortage comes despite the crew’s “largely planned reserve”.
Swedish flag carrier SAS on Wednesday also canceled nine flights due to the coronavirus, after canceling around 30 flights worldwide a day earlier.
Lufthansa posted its first operating profit since the beginning of the pandemic in the third quarter of this year, after a difficult 18 months.
It recorded an underlying or operating loss of 5.5 billion euros ($6.2 billion) in 2020 and has turned to the state for assistance.
In November, Lufthansa announced it had returned the €9 billion bailout it received from the government earlier than planned.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
