flight chaos
In July and August: Lufthansa cancels another 2000 flights
Lufthansa medium-haul jets at Frankfurt Airport
© Andrew Woodley / Imago Images
Because of the current handling problems, Lufthansa has had to remove hundreds of flights from the timetable for the third time. Connections to the Frankfurt and Munich hubs are particularly affected.
A company spokesman said on Wednesday in Frankfurt that it had been seen in the past week that the remaining flight schedule could be stabilized with targeted cancellations. This has now been analyzed and implemented for the next few weeks.
It is already the third wave of Lufthansa flight cancellations this summer. The airline initially canceled a good 3,000 flights for the months of July and August and then canceled 770 further connections for the week up to and including Thursday (July 14). Now there are another 2000 cancellations for a period of six weeks.
Above all, the traffic peaks in the afternoon and evening should be relieved, the spokesman explained. At these times, the ground handling services at the hubs are overloaded, so that machines have to wait and luggage is left behind.
The spokesman explained that short connections to destinations within Germany or nearby countries, for which there are good alternatives, would be canceled in particular. Flights to specific holiday destinations would only be canceled in exceptional cases.
For Frankfurt, Germany’s largest airport, the expected peak loads for the summer have not yet been reached. The operator Fraport, the federal police and the main customer Lufthansa are expecting a particularly high rush for the weekend from July 22nd to 24th, because that is when the school holidays in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate begin.
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