Lufthansa Group made this announcement:

• All flights to Tel Aviv and Eilat will be cancelled as of next Sunday for the next three weeks
• Lufthansa cancels about 7,100 European flights in March as of today

The extended refusal of entry of the Israeli authorities, which apply from March 6, 2020 among others also for travelers from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, will lead to a considerable drop in demand for flights to Israel.

As a result, Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines will cancel all their flights to Tel Aviv and Eilat as of Sunday, March 8, 2020 for the remaining winter timetable period until March 28, 2020. The Lufthansa Group sees itself forced to make this cancellation for economic and operational reasons, as many passengers are no longer entitled to enter the country.

For operational reasons, some flights to Tel Aviv this Friday and Saturday have already been cancelled, as also flight crews are affected by these new restrictions. All airlines mentioned above usually offer a total of ten daily flights to Tel Aviv, in addition Lufthansa has one scheduled weekly service to Eilat.

Lufthansa: 7,100 European flights cancelled in March

Due to the exceptional circumstances caused by the spread of the coronavirus and the decline in demand, the Lufthansa Group has also decided by reducing capacity by up to 25 percent. The route cancellations and frequency adjustments correspond to a calculated capacity of 150 aircraft, of which 125 are short- and medium-haul and are 25 long haul. The Lufthansa Group fleet currently comprises around 770 aircraft, including some 180 long-haul aircraft.

Starting on March 5, 2020, the route cancellations and frequency adjustments will be implemented successively and the passengers affected will be informed about the changes and rebooking options. Until the end of March, Lufthansa is cancelling a total of about 7,100 flights (including 3,750 flights from Frankfurt to 75 airports, and 3,350 flights from Munich to 65 airports).

The focus is on domestic flights from the Frankfurt hub to Berlin, Munich and Hamburg as well as from Munich to Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Bremen and Hanover. These are high-frequency connections, some of which are operated up to every half hour by Lufthansa. This means that numerous rebooking options are available.

A second focus of the route cancellations and frequency adjustments is Italy. This includes the destinations Milan, Venice, Rome, Turin, Verona, Bologna, Ancona and Pisa.

Lufthansa passengers are advised to inform themselves about the current situation of the respective flight via lufthansa.com before departure. Guests who have submitted their contact details to Lufthansa will be proactively informed of the cancellations. This is because in addition to domestic German and Italian connections, other flights to Scandinavia, Great Britain, the Baltic States, Poland, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, etc. are affected.

When cancelling routes, Lufthansa has taken into account the fact that all European destinations will continue to be serviced, so that in most cases customers can be offered a suitable alternative.

In addition, the airline had already decided last week to suspend flights from Germany to mainland China until April 24, 2020 inclusive. The connection to Tehran will remain cancelled until April 30, 2020.

Lufthansa is also reducing frequencies in its route network to and from Hong Kong and Seoul (Korea), among others. Flights between Munich and Hong Kong will be suspended between March 6 and April 24. Passengers will be rebooked via Frankfurt and Zurich if possible during this period. Between March 5 and April 24, 2020, some frequencies will also be cancelled on routes from Frankfurt and Munich to Seoul.

In addition, the Lufthansa Group has announced further cost-cutting measures in the areas of personnel, materials and project budgets.

It is not yet possible to estimate the impact on earnings expected from current developments.

The Group will publish key financial figures at its annual financial results press conference on  March 19, 2020.

Lufthansa Group has made this announcement:

• As of November 8, 2020, all Lufthansa Group flights will take off and land at BER.
• Lufthansa Group moves Berlin bookings to BER.
• Six Lufthansa Group airlines connect the German capital with Europe and the world. Around 700 flights a week with up to 33,000 passengers a day 
• Hohmeister: BER needs better transport links 

The kickoff is scheduled for October 31, 2020: over the course of a week, the flight operations of the German capital will move from Tegel Airport to the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER).

Lufthansa will bid Tegel (TGL) farewell on November 7: the last scheduled departure is flight LH1955 from Berlin to Munich. The BER premiere will then take place the next morning: at 6:30 a.m. on November 8, 2020, flight LH173 from Berlin to Frankfurt is scheduled to take off from the capital’s new airport.

Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines will commence operations at BER together with Lufthansa on November 8, 2020. According to current plans, Eurowings will already have its first flight from BER on November 4, 2020.

The booking systems of the Lufthansa Group airlines have now been switched over to the new airport. Customers who book a flight for 8 November or later will see the new BER airport as their destination instead of Tegel. Passengers who have already booked a flight for this time will be informed and rebooked. According to current plans, the number of flights and arrival and departure times will remain the same.

Lufthansa guests can expect a special highlight at BER: the Lufthansa Lounge. It is located in Terminal 1 (Main Pier North) and covers an area of around 1,600 square meters. Passengers of Lufthansa Group Airlines with Business Class tickets, as well as travelers with Frequent Traveller, Senator or Star Alliance Gold status and HON Circle Members can relax, refresh or work in peace before their flight in the Lufthansa Lounge with its separate Senator and Business areas. A special atmosphere is created by the surrounding window front with an exclusive view across the airport apron to the Berlin skyline.

Going forward, BER should not have the significant bottlenecks at security checks that were recently the case at Tegel. A centrally organized security checkpoint, more modern technologies at the control lanes and more spacious terminals should make the processes more efficient. Hohmeister: “It is important that the modernization of the airport continues in the future. The BER has to be competitive, both in terms of quality and costs.”

Lufthansa Group has made this announcement:

• Budget reduction in the administrative areas
• Offer of unpaid leave for employees
• Expansion of options for part-time work planned
• New recruitment suspended

Lufthansa Group has made this announcement:

In order to counteract the economic impact of the coronavirus at an early stage, Lufthansa is implementing several measures to lower costs: among other things, all new hires planned for the airline with the crane will be reassessed, suspended or deferred to a later date. Lufthansa is also offering employees unpaid leave effective immediately. An expansion of part-time work options in the context of collective bargaining agreements is currently being examined.

All planned flight attendant and station personnel training courses as of April 2020 will not be carried out. For the time being, the participants of courses that are already in progress will not be hired. However, the aim remains to be able to offer the participants employment contracts in the long term. In the administrative areas, the core brand Lufthansa will reduce its project volume by ten percent and the budget for material costs by 20 percent.

Following a thorough assessment of all available information on the effects of the novel coronavirus, Lufthansa Group had already cancelled all flights by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines to/from mainland China until the end of the winter flight schedule on March 28, 2020. Due to the current demand situation for flights to and from Hong Kong, capacity adjustments have already been made on this route, and additional frequency adjustments to and from Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich are planned. In purely mathematical terms, 13 Lufthansa Group aircraft are currently on the ground.

It is not yet possible to estimate the expected impact of the current developments on earnings. The group will be commenting on this matter at the press briefing for the annual results on  March 19, 2020.

Lufthansa aircraft photo gallery:

Lufthansa Group made this announcement:

In 2019, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group carried a total of 145 million passengers on board. This represents an increase of 2.3 percent compared to the previous year. With around 1.2 million flights the seat load factor amounted 82.5 percent. This represents an increase of 1.0 percentage points. Both figures thus exceed the record figures of the previous year.

The network airlines recorded an increase in the number of passengers in 2019, in particular at the hubs in Zurich (+5.7%), Vienna (+5.1%) and Munich (+2.5%). The number of passengers at the Frankfurt hub grew by 0.4 percent in 2019.

In December, the freight capacity was 0.3 percent higher than in the previous year and the tonne-kilometres sold declined by 3.6 percent. This results in a payload factor of 63.9 per cent, which is 2.6 percentage points lower. In 2019, total freight capacity was 6.3 percent higher than in the previous year. At the same time, sales decreased by 2.1 percent in this period. At 61.4 percent, the load factor was 5.3 percentage points lower than in the previous year.

In December 2019, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 10 million passengers on board their aircraft. This corresponds to a decrease of 0.3 per cent over the same month last year. The number of seat kilometres offered was 0.3 percent up on the previous year, while sales increased by 3.3 per cent. This results in a seat load factor of 81.0 percent, 2.4 percentage points higher than in December 2018.

Network Airlines

The network airlines Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines carried a total of some 7.5 million passengers in December, 2.5 per cent more than in the same month last year. The number of seat-kilometres offered in December was 2.9 percent up on the same month last year. Sales in seat kilometres rose by 6.3 percent in the same period. The seat load factor increased by 2.6 percentage points to 81.3 percent.

The number of passengers in December rose by 4.9% at the Zurich hub, by 4.4% in Vienna and by 2.0% in Munich. In Frankfurt, the number of passengers declined by 1.3% in the same period.

In total, the network airlines carried around 107 million passengers last year, 3.2 percent more than in the same period last year. The seat load factor for network airlines rose by 1.0 percentage points to 82.5 percent during this period.

Eurowings

In point-to-point traffic, the Lufthansa Group carried 2.4 million passengers with the airlines Eurowings (including Germanwings) and Brussels Airlines in December, of which around 2.2 million on short-haul flights and 258,000 on long-haul flights.

This represents a decrease of 7.9 percent over the previous year. The 11.3 percent decrease in the number of flights on offer in December was offset by a 10.1 per cent decrease in sales. At 79.1 percent, the seat load factor was 1.0 percentage points higher than in the same month last year.

On short-haul routes, the number of seat-kilometres offered was decreased by 9.6 percent in December, while the number of seat-kilometres sold decreased by 5.7 percent over the same period. At 77.5 percent, the seat load factor was 3.2 percentage points higher than in the same month last year. On long-haul routes, the seat load factor decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 83.1 percent over the same period. The 13.5 percent decrease in capacity was offset by a 15.4 percent decrease in sales.

In 2019, the Eurowings Group carried a total of around 28.1 million passengers, 1.4  percent less than in the previous year. At 82.6 percent, the seat load factor during this period was 1.2 percentage points higher than in the previous year.

In other news, Lufthansa announced:

The Airbus A320neo, the latest generation short- and medium-haul aircraft, is now operating from Munich. Since the turn of the year, four A320neo aircraft have been in service at the Munich hub. A brand-new Airbus will arrive in Munich at the end of January, and another will follow in February. The plan is for the Munich A320neo fleet to grow to nine aircraft by the end of 2020.