The airline Lufthansa is canceling 20,000 flights until October. The German company, which is among the world's largest airlines, announced this in a press release on Tuesday evening. The cancellations are intended to reduce the number of "unprofitable" short-haul flights.
The company justifies the measure by saying that jet fuel prices have "doubled since the beginning of the Iran conflict". In total, around 40,000 tons of jet fuel will be saved.
Overall, Lufthansa's summer capacity measured in seat kilometers will decrease by one percent, it is announced. Seat kilometers are the number of seats multiplied by the number of kilometers flown. Lufthansa does not disclose what percentage of their total number of flights the cancellations correspond to.
Flights from Frankfurt to Bydgoszcz and Rzeszów in Poland and Stavanger in Norway are canceled completely and are currently removed from the company's flight schedule. In addition, ten other destinations will be moved to other airports.
The war in Iran has - in addition to the cancellation of a large number of flights in the Middle East - caused not only Lufthansa, but also many other airlines to reduce capacity. At the same time, several have also announced that they will introduce fuel surcharges.
Tuesday's announcement of cancellations comes after a week in which Lufthansa had to cancel hundreds of flights as a result of a strike among the company's staff.
The International Energy Agency announced last week that there is jet fuel in stockpiles in Europe for about six weeks if the situation does not change in the Middle East. After that, there will be problems with supplies. This could mean, for example, that companies have to cancel flights.
The majority of the jet fuel that is refueled at European airports is imported. And much of it has normally passed through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely closed since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.
/ritzau/
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