Lufthansa will cancel approximately 33000 flights in January and February 2022 due to Omicron

The sudden drop in bookings from mid-January to February led to the cancellation of 33000 flights scheduled by Lufthansa Group airlines.

The German airline Lufthansa will reduce its scheduled flight schedule for the winter season by "about 10%" due to the Omicron variant. There is uncertainty about travel since the beginning of 2022, due to new restrictions imposed by more and more European countries and globally.

At the same time, some of the most affected Omicron countries in Europe are Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium, the main markets served by Lufthansa Group air operators.

Currently, the largest group of airlines in Europe, consisting of Lufthansa, Eurowings, Austrian Airlines, SWISS and Brussels Airlines, pays about 60% of all pre-pandemic scheduled flights. The number of passengers transported is half of the 2019 pre-pandemic period.

Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr noted that the number of canceled flights would have been much higher if the group's airline operators had not been required to pay 18 unnecessary flights just to secure their landing and take-off rights at European airports. . We are talking here about the famous slots allocated to airlines at major airports in Europe. Under European law, air carriers must ensure a certain number of flights on those slots in order to maintain them in the following year.

Lufthansa is also facing an internal wave of new cases of COVID-19, which has led to the cancellation of several scheduled flights during the winter holidays.