Lufthansa Group said Tuesday it will cut 20,000 short-haul flights through October, with most of the cancellations concentrated at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. The airline said the move would save the equivalent of about 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel.
The cuts come as Europe’s airlines are being squeezed by a jet fuel shock that began after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February and spread through fighting around the Strait of Hormuz. Prices for jet fuel have more than doubled in some markets since then, and the head of the International Energy Agency said on April 16 that Europe had about 6 weeks' worth of jet fuel left. For Lufthansa, the schedule reductions are part of a planned consolidation of its European network that includes Lufthansa Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SWISS and ITA Airways, with hubs in Brussels, Rome, Vienna and Zurich also in the mix.
The company said it has secured enough jet fuel for “the coming weeks” and is “pursuing a range of measures,” including “the physical procurement of jet fuel,” to keep supply stable through the summer. But the wider market is still under strain. The European Union’s top energy official, Dan Jørgensen, said Wednesday the war is costing Europe around 500 million euros, or about $600 million, each day, and warned that this is not a short-term price spike but something that could last “or maybe even years.” He added that even in a best-case scenario, “it’s still bad.”
Lufthansa’s move follows a run of airline cuts that is now spreading well beyond Germany. All but one of the world’s 20 largest airlines have canceled scheduled May flights across every major region, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Last week, Edelweiss Air said it would drop service to Denver and Seattle this summer and reduce flights to Las Vegas through early autumn, while Air New Zealand said it was consolidating about 4% of its schedule in May and June. Airlines are especially exposed because jet fuel is typically one of their biggest operating costs, and the fallout is already showing up for travelers as fewer options and higher fares heading into the peak summer season.
That is the pressure point Lufthansa is trying to manage now: it says it has fuel for the near term, but it is cutting flights anyway to protect the schedule, and there is no sign the market shock is easing quickly.