Air traffic: two-thirds of the winter flight schedule restored

air traffic
Two-thirds of the winter flight schedule restored

The display boards in German airports are slowly becoming full again.

In the winter flight schedule valid from Sunday (October 31), with almost 402,000 flights, a good two-thirds (68 percent) of the program from the pre-crisis period have been restored, according to an evaluation by the industry association BDL published on Wednesday. Last winter, the airlines reduced their offer significantly to 123,800 flights due to the corona pandemic and the associated travel restrictions.

Particularly large gaps compared to the pre-crisis status of 2019/2020 can be found within the five-month period of validity for domestic German connections and for traffic to the Asia-Pacific region. There are still high entry barriers there. “Here we urgently need practicable rules for entry regulations that are based on the actual pandemic,” said BDL Managing Director Matthias von Randow. In the case of intercontinental flights, on the other hand, the Middle East and North America are showing strong comebacks, each around 80 percent of the pre-crisis level.

German airports are currently planning nine percent more flights to Turkey than two years ago. Greece, Portugal and Spain are also almost approaching the pre-crisis level because a comparatively large number of tourists are expected here over the winter. A good 307,000 planned European flights correspond to 72 percent of the volume from winter 2019/2020. Last winter there were only 87,000 European flights from Germany.

Greenpeace: A third of the flights are superfluous

According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, around a third of the 150 most-used short-haul flights within the EU are superfluous because, as an alternative, a rail connection of less than six hours is available. In Brussels, Greenpeace again called for a ban on these replaceable short-haul flights. This could save 3.5 million tons of CO2 annually. The next federal government will not get around “drastic decisions”. “As a first step, Greenpeace calls for the cancellation of connections that are flown a lot, such as Frankfurt to Brussels, Munich, Berlin or Hamburg.”

The BDL, on the other hand, only considers rail travel times of a good three hours to be competitive. In addition, connection security and luggage transport would have to be improved in the event of a coupling. To this end, the aviation industry has worked out an action plan with Deutsche Bahn, explained the managing director of Randow.

The number of German domestic flights increases from just under 17,000 to a good 44,000 within a year. But that is only half of what we were used to before Corona. According to the association, the reasons are the withdrawal of the provider Easyjet from the German market, faster rail connections and the lower demand for business trips within Germany.

USA are opening their borders again

German passengers to North America can use an offer of 80 percent of the pre-crisis level, where the USA intends to reopen its borders for vaccinated Europeans from November 8th. Canada and Mexico are also picking up again. The 14,624 flights on offer go to 27 destinations, so that only Fort Myers and Puerto Rico are missing on the continent. In contrast, only 7,839 flights are offered in the Asia-Pacific region, which corresponds to 54 percent of the 2019 volume.

At the largest German airport in Frankfurt, 17 US cities are regularly on the flight schedule, as the operator Fraport reported. A total of 2970 passenger aircraft departures per week are planned in the winter flight schedule. That is around 180 percent more than last winter, but also 30 percent less than in the 2019/2020 season, which was only affected by the corona pandemic at the very end.

dpa