Lufthansa to suspend three EX-YU routes over winter

Lufthansa will suspend three routes to the former Yugoslavia this coming winter season when compared to last year, due to low demand resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. The airline will not be resuming operations between Frankfurt and Zagreb, as well as Munich and Ljubljana, which have been suspended since March, while services from the Bavarian capital to Belgrade will be shelved from late October. Prior to the global health crisis, the German carrier ran double daily flights between Frankfurt and the Croatian capital, a daily rotation between Munich and Ljubljana and a triple daily service from Munich to Belgrade. The three routes are expected to be restored at the start of the 2021 summer season on March 28. “The continuing high level of uncertainty in global air traffic makes short-term adjustments to the current market situation unavoidable for the foreseeable future. The outlook for international air traffic has significantly worsened in recent weeks ", Lufthansa said.

Since the suspension, Croatia Airlines has increased its operations to Frankfurt, which are codeshared by the German carrier. They now run 22 times per week. On the other hand, there will be no flights from Ljubljana and Belgrade to Munich until at least next summer season. Germany is one of Croatia’s biggest markets, both in the summer and winter months. Last year, 328.534 passengers flew between Zagreb and Frankfurt with Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines. On the other hand, Ljubljana - Munich is the Slovenian capital’s seventh busiest route. During its last full year of operations in 2018, Adria Airways carried 78.000 travellers between the two cities, of which 80% were transfers. Lufthansa handled 206.270 passengers between Munich and Belgrade last year.

The German carrier will continue to maintain the remainder of its network to the former Yugoslavia this winter, albeit with fewer frequencies. These include services from Munich to Sarajevo, which will be restored on October 25 after a seven-month hiatus, from Munich to Zagreb, as well as from Frankfurt to Ljubljana and Belgrade. Lufthansa has said it will slash more jobs on top of the 22.000 previously announced and put more planes out of service as the coronavirus continues to crush travel demand. The German airline group said in a statement it was losing some 500 million euros a month, and bookings were declining after a brief rebound over the summer. To cut costs, Lufthansa now plans to reduce its roughly 800-strong fleet by 150 planes until 2025, compared with an earlier plan to scrap 100 aircraft. Lufthansa, which also owns Swiss, Brussels and Austrian Airlines, was saved from bankruptcy through a German government bailout worth nine billion euros in June. However, the airline has repeatedly warned that the government rescue would not be enough to stave off painful cuts as the sector weathers an unprecedented crisis.