Lufthansa has addressed the impact of the closure of its CityLine subsidiary last week, confirming it will suspend all flights from Munich to Ljubljana, Rijeka and Tivat until at least June 1, labelling the routes as “unprofitable”. Services following this date are under review, with a high probability of being cancelled. “The cancellation of flights previously operated by Lufthansa CityLine reduces Lufthansa Group's summer capacity by 1% of available seat kilometres (ASK). In total, 20.000 short-haul flights will be removed from the schedule through October, equivalent to approximately 40.000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the Iran conflict”, Lufthansa said in a statement.
The fate of these routes past June 1 will be announced in late April or early May. The carrier noted, “The medium-term route planning for the coming months is being revised, considering the capacity reduction and will be published in late April or early May. This will include optimisations to the short-haul offering for the entire summer season, thereby ensuring schedule stability for the flight plan period. For the flights scheduled in the summer timetable, the Group expects a largely stable fuel supply. Lufthansa is pursuing a range of measures to this end, including the physical procurement of jet fuel as well as price hedging”.
The German flag carrier noted that affected passengers up until June have been informed of their flight cancellations. “The schedule adjustments reduce the number of unprofitable short-haul flights across the Lufthansa Group network. The planned consolidation of the European network is being carried out across Lufthansa Group's six hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels and Rome. Passengers will therefore continue to have access to the global route network, particularly long-haul connections. However, due to the increase in jet fuel prices, this will be achieved significantly more efficiently than before. Lufthansa Group is also accelerating a further key strategic step in the consolidation of European networks within its hub airlines - Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and ITA Airways”, the company said.
Services between Munich and Belgrade will also be mostly cancelled in May, however, mainline Lufthansa will operate flights between the two cities on April 26, as well as May 1, 3, 10, 14, 17, 22, 24 and 31. Yesterday, Air Serbia announced the launch of daily flights between the two cities starting May 22, noting its schedule will enable transfers to a number of destinations, including those of Lufthansa’s suspended routes in the former Yugoslavia. “The flights enable transfers to a broad network of destinations including New York, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Istanbul, Athens, Thessaloniki, Rhodes, Corfu, Heraklion, Mykonos, Santorini, Larnaca, Tbilisi, Izmir, Malaga, Naples, Palermo, Catania, Malta, Varna, Bucharest, Sofia, Budapest, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tirana, Podgorica, Tivat, Mostar, Ohrid, Dubrovnik, Split, Rijeka, Pula, Zadar and Brač. Thanks to a carefully planned flight schedule, Belgrade is further strengthening its position as a key transit hub connecting Bavaria with the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and strategic destinations in North America and Asia”, the Serbian carrier noted.
Lufthansa calling these routes “unprofitable” says more about their cost structure than the actual demand.
ReplyDeleteWell there is a reason they didn't fly LJU until Adria collapsed.
DeleteSo now you see how crazy those strikes were.
DeleteThe reason they didn’t fly was because Adria was Lufthansa’s feeder airline for which the government was covering losses
DeleteLufthansa has just confirmed the stationing of a Helvetic E195 to operate LJU and other flights from May, 1st from MUC. More to follow.
DeleteLike they needed a plane :) This is just weird.
Delete10.09 all MUC-LJU flights are cancelled from 1 May - 31 May
DeleteWhere did they confirm that.
Delete@10.09 don't post misinformation. Lufthansa just announced that they will relocate an E195 to Munich to operate some feeder flights (without date). They haven't mentioned which routes or frequencies. Lufthansa City Line has 70+ routes from Munich. In any case they have cancelled all these flights in May.
DeletePeople really need to read the article. They may find a solution. But not for next month.
DeleteThe fate of these routes past June 1 will be announced in late April or early May. The carrier noted, “The medium-term route planning for the coming months is being revised, considering the capacity reduction and will be published in late April or early May. This will include optimisations to the short-haul offering for the entire summer season, thereby ensuring schedule stability for the flight plan period. For the flights scheduled in the summer timetable, the Group expects a largely stable fuel supply. Lufthansa is pursuing a range of measures to this end, including the physical procurement of jet fuel as well as price hedging”.
It just shows how lost they are. They issue release that they are cancelling flights until end of May (and indeed they have). Now 24 hours later maybe they will find Helvetic plane for feeder flights. Crazy. Not what Lufthansa used to be.
DeleteYes, all MUC-LJU flights are cancelled until the end of May, you can see this in their reservation system (cancelled yesterday), also removed form LJU airport timetable.
DeleteNot even close what LH used to be.
DeleteWhenever I’m offered LH Group from LJU through booking systems, I avoid it. Unless it’s Swiss - so far so good. I’m also sad that ITA is going under LH Group because I fear they will destroy it. It was a very solid option from TRS so far.
Deletesmaller markets are always the first to be cut when things get tough.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me they will ramp up BEG now that JU has announced it is launching flights.
ReplyDeleteWithout doubt. Will be interesting to see how the battle plays out.
DeleteAir Serbia’s move into Munich could end up being more than just opportunistic. If they build strong load factors Lufthansa might struggle to return.
DeleteGood thing is that they have a lot of planes so they can use whatever to respond. I wouldn't be surprised if Air Dolomiti steps in.
DeleteSo far no one has stepped in. And all those planes are employed on other routes.
DeleteLufthansa will not struggle to return to MUC. It is their main hub no2. With so many connecting options, no way they struggle with it.
Deleteand they have just chosen MUC to be their focus on their new long-haul expansion strategy
DeleteA mess a major airline like Lufthansa should not have allowed to happen.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t the whole of Germany a mess though? I’ve been to Berlin (flew) in recent years, Lake Constance and Rügen (drove) and I wasn’t impressed. On my overnight in Nürnberg I felt so unsafe at 9PM in the centre that I virtually escaped to my hotel. In Berlin I got mugged of course. The police caught the guy but the prosecution did nothing - just informed me that this Algerian national has no permanent address is DE. What? No thanks, DE. Get a grip!
DeleteI got mugged at Beton hala parking at 4 PM and I never felt unsafe. Zero calls from police or prosecutor for two years.
DeleteI'm sure you did.
DeleteMaybe they did? Why the sarc. But none of that is aviation related.
DeleteUnprofitable, but on the other hand, both daily flights from LJU to AMS with KLM are mostly sold out every day.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see them further increase the frequencies or capacity next year.
DeleteWhich is not directly connected to profitability. Price of coupon for this sector
Deletein time of Adria, was so low that even full CRJ didnt bring profit. While price of coupon for connected flights was determinet by Lufthansa, they took all the profit of connected flights.
If these route does not return after June, it will be a major setback for Ljubljana Airport
ReplyDeleteIt could be that the other airlines of the group will increase the flights, or maybe ITA really does launch Rome in the end.
DeleteReally hope so. Would love to see ITA in LJU.
DeleteOne would expect, after all of this, you would want less of LH business, but you want more
DeleteWell, to be fair Swiss is doing a very good job - decent prices, reliable service, constant growth. So its not all doom and gloom in the LHG.
DeleteI know it is not; they have billions of profits. It just seems it comes more as a result of their dominant market position rather than of doing business. CityLine was reliable and well-priced till three days ago too. I don't have confidence in them anymore.
DeleteYes. Flying to Spain with Swiss from LJU in late June - so far everything OK. My friends recently flew to ZRH (live in Bern) and were very happy.
DeleteOk they are rerouting passenger onto other LH group airlines BUT buying tickets on other LH Group airlines is now almost impossible. Fares have exploded and are selling at almost 1000 euros return (within Europe!) because there are no more seats.
ReplyDeleteI noticed this in BEG as well. Same day return on OS was around €400, now it's at least €750.
DeleteWhat are they going to do about the CRJ planes? Are they selling them? Sending them to the desert?
ReplyDeleteSo we can expect cuts across LH Group. As soon as I read "consolidation"...
ReplyDeleteEven if they resume flights after June, who the hell would risk it and buy a ticket? They closed an airline with a 5-minute notice xD Their Munich operations are pretty much done for the whole summer season, even if they start flights in June
ReplyDeleteEven more irresponsible is that they are still selling tickets for CityLine flights from 1 June...
DeleteTrue!
DeleteTransparent scam. :-)
DeleteAnother reminder that relying on one airline group for the majority of your connectivity is risky.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteYes! Take a note LJU. Although to be fair: the root of the problem is the EU for allowing this airline such a monopoly across much of the bloc.
Deletelol
DeleteLet’s see what happens after 1June
ReplyDeleteWill flights also be canceled after june since i have at least 6 and they seem to be fine in the app
ReplyDeleteIt days in the article
Delete"The fate of these routes past June 1 will be announced in late April or early May."
*says
DeleteCancelled in April, will decide in May about the flights in June... This is not German economy of my childhood...
DeleteMany flights will be covered by other airlines and not canceled
Delete^ The airline itself says the flights are cancelled. But you know better?
DeleteThey do not know, literally they said we'll know end of April or early May.
DeleteExactly for a time being: they are totally clueless. The only certain thing is final cancellation of flights until the end of May (done yesterday).
DeleteTivat will be very well connected via Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Air Serbia.
DeleteIndeed. Air Serbia has proved a MUCH more reliable partner across the ex-Yu, especially here in LJU, than LH ever did. Thanks to our Serbian brothers.
Delete"In total, 20.000 short-haul flights will be removed from the schedule through October, equivalent to approximately 40.000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the Iran conflict”,
ReplyDeleteFunky statement- the metrics they use is how much jet fuel they had saved... this seems to not only be about the price but availability of jet fuel as well...
It didn't double for them; they have 80% of hedged oil (locked last year price).
Deletemy previous point being, provided they can get jet fuel at all...
DeleteIt's weird they talk about October and at the same time saying they'll know in May what will happen. They know exactly which 20k flights will be cancelled in October :)
DeleteOut of these three LJU will be most affected.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, they rebooked us to LH flight to FRA with A321. So the capacity at the end of the day will be the same, just one route less
DeleteAir connectivity is much more than just a number of seats.
DeleteI wouldn’t be surprised if some of these routes return under another Lufthansa Group carrier instead of Lufthansa itself.
ReplyDeleteThis might push more travellers in Slovenia toward Venice, Zagreb or even Trieste for long-haul connections.
ReplyDeleteThey will just re-direct the to FRA and swiss will take some too. But no we don’t need adria
DeleteDoes anyone know - is Trieste not losing any flights from LH at all? I know they only have FRA, but still?
DeleteTrieste sounds like AirDolomiti so probably no
DeleteFor Munich Airport, losing regional feeders is also bad news. This affects the hub, not just local markets.
ReplyDeletePassengers in the region should prepare for higher fares
ReplyDeleteAlready visible
DeleteActually booked a flight 5 days ago and was perfectly fine.
Delete5 days ago City line was not out of business.
Delete9:50 Have you been living under a rock? Fares have been high for a while now. Though you can still catch a bargain. Let’s leave the doom and gloom alone. The market will correct itself if it will want to survive. If not, things will move on as they always do. People will always need to move about. Regardless of the “high fares”.
DeleteCity Line was such an important airline right? Give me a break. Some people love to sow fear, they get a kick out of it. No reason for it. Every problem is always an opportunity. And this region often fails to see that - that’s why it’s constantly behind the nations that do.
DeleteYou really are out of your mind. Fares on LH have exploded because LH is rebooking people that were meant to fly Cityline onto flights to Frankfurt. Flights are now close to 100% full and fares have gone crazy. Go and look at the fares yourself before lecturing people.
DeleteBased on internal info, none of these are coming back including MUC-LJU.
ReplyDeleteSad but expected
DeleteWho cares. As long as we have prestigious LJU-FRA we don't need anything else. Bravo Fraport!
DeleteI am just waiting Fraport to launch the idea the government should subsidise flights to MUC. Their business model is to keep their airport charges high and direct the airlines to the government to ask for subsidies.
DeleteFraport has really been an underwhelming owner. It’s a shame Zmago Skobir had such unreasonable fascination with Germany back then. He lobbied strongly for Fraport to take over from what I remember reading in the news.
DeleteUnless you have a national airline, it's unlikely anyone can step in and replace LH on these routes.
ReplyDeleteAir Montenegro could start TIV-MUC.
DeleteDon't count on it.
DeleteFor the winter, on LJU-MUC route they are only selling business class seats...
ReplyDeleteWhat a mess.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they resolve it
Delete> reduces Lufthansa Group's summer capacity by 1% of available seat kilometres
ReplyDeleteSo they included all of their subsidiaries and multiplied by kilometers just to make the impact look smaller.
Companies do PR things like this but rarely companies do operational things like this.
Deletesomewhere i read Helvetic will help them out from MUC
ReplyDeletethey stil sell LJU-MUC with "Cityline" after 1st of June
My gut feeling says CRJs will be back in a month
ReplyDeleteProbably with Lufthansa Village Airlines, or maybe Lufthansa Town Airlines.
Deleteyou mean Lufthansa City Airlines
DeleteI think you’re probably right.
DeleteI am just buying a ticket and flying to MUC from LJU (return in May) is now possible via IST 347€, WAS 384€, AMS 534€, ZRH 674€ and FRA 1.103€. Checked in bag included. So instead of 40 mins direct flight the 8 hours journey is needed.
ReplyDeleteYou better use your car. Cheaper and faster
DeleteTake a train, you'll be in Ljubljana in some 6h, all while reading, listening to the music, watching nice area outside or surfing the web. Why would you bother with plane transfers which are more expensive and take so much time?
DeleteYou are not serious
DeleteThere’s a bus as well. Cheap and pretty fast.
Deleteto the" you are not serious" guy: calculate how much time you will need to get to LJU arport, check in, waiting, flying, waiting for disembarking at MUC, waiting for the damn Sbahn which takes one hour to Hauptbahnhof .... you are in for min 4 hours at least
DeleteIs it even legal for them to sell the tickets on the airline that doesn't operate anymore? All MUC flights from may 31st onwards are still set as operated by LH Cityline
ReplyDeleteIn a big brain move, they are now exploring using SkyAlps as ACMI provider for MUC flights in the summer
ReplyDeleteThey are just looking into things as they go. Obviously this closure has created more problems than they originally thought. You would think they would have thought of the repercussions before the brains trust closed CityLine.
DeleteStrikehansa goes Cancelhansa, won‘t see my bucks anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteI have just read they rescheduled a woman to Frankfurt, all while leaving her second leg from Munich and there are 2 hours for transfer and no flight between these two :D
DeleteSpohr (the LH CEO) just needs to go
ReplyDeleteI was on my way to India a few years back and 2 days before my flight Lufthansa started striking and this guy was all arrogant on the news. It was pretty stressful for me to get a rebooking, had to bring my departure forward, and the staff at FRA was incredibly rude all the time. No thanks, LH. Why the Balkans glorified DE in the past is beyond me. At least from my experince there.
Deletehas nothing to with with DE or with the Balkans glorifying something
DeleteOU waiting to be wet leased
ReplyDeleteA perfect opportunity for Condor to enlarge its presence in the EX-YU region. They fly to places like Yerevan and Tbilisi but hardly anything to EX-YU.
ReplyDelete