NEWS FLASH
German carrier Lufthansa will temporarily suspend services between Frankfurt and Zagreb from March 15 until the start of the 2020 summer season on March 29 as a result of the coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak, which has significantly dented demand for travel. This week, the airline has decreased its double daily flight offering on the route to just two weekly. The carrier will continue to maintain normal operations from Munich to the Croatian capital. Lufthansa is planning to slash half of its flights and is considering grounding its entire fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbos, as the fallout from the coronavirus continues to hit the global air travel industry. “In recent days, the Lufthansa Group has been exposed to drastic declines in bookings and numerous flight cancellations due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus. All traffic areas are now affected”, the company said.
It's a shame but not surprising as there is OU with its three daily flights. With LH gone from the market maybe OU can finally make money on ZAG-FRA.
ReplyDeleteOU can not make money. Yesterday morning OU410 (with Dash!) at 6:35 with rerouted pax from LH cancelled morning flight - Total 46, not even full dash!
DeleteWow that's bad, I can only imagine how bad their load was, without LH passengers that is. They need to reduce FRA as well then, at least from 3 to 2 daily flights on the Q400. LH is cutting many frequencies from FRA to the world so there is no need for them to keep flying like before.
DeleteLH rebooks pax on OU operated flights only if pax have intercontinental connection. If connection is within Europe they reroute all pax on their MUC flt.
DeleteYes but how many empty seats does LH have on the CRJ from MUC? Hopefully not a lot. It seems MUC is the better performed than FRA because there is more local demand and less seats offered than in FRA.
DeleteI just hope LH, last European five star airline, does not collapse.
If this Corona virus continues for much longer then a couple of months, I think a lot of Airlines will be in serious financial trouble including the likes of Lufthansa.
ReplyDeleteLJU is cancelled as well
ReplyDeleteAt least give us exact information. Today LH only cancelled one FRA flight, but are operating MUC and second FRA. Nothing cancelled for tomorrow yet. Neither did LH or any other airline announce any LJU suspensions at the moment.
DeleteI was flying from LGW to Vienna yesterday. Basically on each gate there is on average 10 passengers waiting for boarding. It looked scary.
ReplyDeleteAnd talking to some stuff from several airlines, they said that booking for April is next to 0.
I was in MUC yesterday and the airport was eerily empty, I think there was 1/10 of the usual crowd there. I was sitting at a gate where Air Canada B777 parked and there were not more than 70 passengers that came out.
DeleteMy yesterday's morning flight from BEG to ZAG had more or less max 15 people on board.
ReplyDeleteSeems like ZAG was hit pretty hard by corona, we see JU struggle, LH suspend flights, Korean delaying their return, EK doing the same...
DeleteAll the airlines and all the airports are being affected, not just ZAG!
DeleteSome more than others though.
DeleteKorean Air sent a memo to its employees stating the airline may not survive. Crazy times!!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/business-51799142
DeleteThis will be especially difficult time for many airlines that struggled before the outbreak. Those are like Norwegian, Korean Air, Asiana and so on. We will have to see who can make it to spring.
DeleteRAM returned to Beijing yesterday since Morocco is already pretty hot so corona can't survive there.
Unfortunately it seems only ZAG was cancelled from FRA, most other destinations have been just reduced. I guess it has to do with OU.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/290167/lufthansa-march-2020-european-service-changes-as-of-06mar20/
Interesting that LH has not reduced BEG, TIA, OTP or SJJ in the region. Seems like all others have seen massive cuts including BUD, SOF, SKG, ZAG, ATH...
ReplyDeleteI am sure cuts will come there as well. Everywhere we are seeing reduction, Laudamotion massacred their route network.
DeleteNow we can see how much tourists and leisure traffic ZAG usually gets being first and the most affected of the destinations in the region.
DeleteIt's not just that, it shows how competition makes ZAG vulnerable. BNX, LJU, TZL... have all seen minimal cancellations over the crisis. ZAG on the other hand is exposed due to high costs so airlines sacrifice them first. I wouldn't be too surprised if margins are higher in other airpors due to lower costs.
DeleteAs for ICN and DXB, it doesn't help BUD has flights from both. LO flies to ICN and they get subsidies from the Hungarian government. How can KE in ZAG compete with that?
Interesting development, let's see what happens next.
ReplyDelete