Lufthansa CEO expects further cuts to flight schedules

Lufthansa CEO expects further cuts to flight schedules Keystone-SDA

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr is expecting further cuts to the flight schedules of the aviation industry in Germany.

“I am very concerned about the connectivity of our business location,” Spohr told Bild am Sonntag.

“The extreme rise in state costs in air traffic is leading to a further decline in supply,” he said. “More and more airlines are avoiding German airports or canceling important connections.”

The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings recently cancelled numerous flights. Both airlines cite the high cost burden at German airports as the reason for the cancellations.

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For months, the aviation industry has been complaining about high costs such as flight fees and the air traffic tax, which was increased in May, as well as fees for security checks and air traffic control.

The head of the Swiss parent company criticised the fact that additional government regulations are already planned.

“Further national unilateral measures have already been decided for the coming years – for example, a blending quota for e-fuels, which, however, does not yet exist in sufficient quantities. As a result, the connection quality of many important economic regions is falling in international comparison,” he said.

E-fuels are synthetically produced carbon-based fuels that are intended to reduce the climate-damaging CO2 emissions of aircraft.

The German aviation association BDL is campaigning for revenues from the increased aviation tax to be used to promote alternative aviation fuels. To this end, it refers to the coalition agreement of the coalition government.

It states: “We will use revenues from the aviation tax to promote the production and use of CO2-neutral, electricity-based aviation fuels as well as for research, development and fleet modernisation in aviation.”

Adapted from French by DeepL/ds

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