Lufthansa Group to suspend handful of EX-YU routes
The Lufthansa Group, comprised of Lufthansa, Eurowings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines, plan to cancel 33.000 flights from mid-January to February, or 10% of its total flight plan, due to a sharp decline in bookings as a result of the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19. It is also struggling with pilots off sick. Although the Group’s airlines will reduce frequencies on almost all routes to the former Yugoslavia, nine will be temporarily suspended altogether. “Above all we are missing passengers in our home markets of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium, because these countries have been hardest hit by the pandemic”, CEO, Carsten Spohr, said.
The bulk of the route suspensions will be implemented by low cost carrier Eurowings. The airline will temporarily halt operations from Zagreb to Stuttgart (until February 7) and Dusseldorf (until March 1), while its Cologne operations will continue to be maintained with a reduced schedule. From Split, flights to Cologne (until February 4) and Stuttgart (until February 13) are also suspended, although services from Dusseldorf will continue to run, albeit once per week. From Sarajevo, the airline is temporarily ending all its flights - to Cologne (until February 8) and Stuttgart (February 15). In addition, the budget airline’s sole route from Belgrade to Stuttgart will be suspended until March 4. Eurowings’ base in Pristina will be mostly unscathed, will all of its eight routes to remain operational throughout the winter.
Swiss International Air Lines will suspend operations from Zurich to Sarajevo starting mid-January until February 14 and reduce flights to Ljubljana. Furthermore, Brussels Airlines will halt services from its hub to the Slovenian capital until March 11, while Lufthansa will reduce frequencies to Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Sarajevo. On the other hand, Austrian will reduce its frequencies to Skopje. The Group has warned the suspensions and frequency reductions could be extended past mid-February once its revises its flight program for the remainder of the winter season, which runs until the last Sunday in March.
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