Lufthansa has notably reduced its planned growth to markets in the former Yugoslavia this summer, affecting its services to Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Belgrade. The flight reductions will impact operations from Munich as the airline looks to avoid the chaos of last summer caused by staff shortages. It has also reduced its planned long haul network. The select flight cancellations are currently in place until July but may be extended. As a result, its planned frequency growth from Munich to former Yugoslav capitals, which was to begin on March 26, will now start in July with the schedule to resemble that of last year until then at the earliest.
Lufthansa has cancelled plans to introduce a second daily service from Munich to Ljubljana from late March. Instead, it will run a daily late morning rotation from the Bavarian capital to Slovenia until July. Flights from Frankfurt will operate three times per day as planned. Similarly, Lufthansa has cancelled plans to add a second daily rotation between Munich and Zagreb until the peak summer months, running a single daily service instead with a similar schedule to its Ljubljana route. Its planned capacity increase to the Croatian capital, from the CRJ900s to the A320-family jets remains unchanged, as well as the double daily service from Frankfurt.
The German national carrier will maintain services between Munich and Belgrade twice per day until July, instead of the planned three daily rotation. It will have a morning and afternoon departure from the Bavarian city with its A320-familly fleet. Plans to increase its Frankfurt - Belgrade service to triple daily from late March remain unchanged, as does the introduction of flights from Frankfurt to Skopje in late April and the frequency growth from the German city to Sarajevo from daily to ten weekly. "Our goal is to establish a reliable flight schedule. At present, the air traffic system does not forgive a single mistake. Every grain of sand, no matter how small, makes the gears grate”, Lufthansa's CEO, Jens Ritter, said this week.
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Danke Cartel!
ReplyDeleteDon't hold your breath for those increases to start in July either.
ReplyDeleteSo it looks like either LH or Munich Airport have staffing issues. Good to know to avoid both this summer.
ReplyDeleteI would avoid western hubs for another year if you are transferring to somewhere this summer.
Delete+1
DeleteAnon 9:08
DeleteAgree completely.
Should opt for Minsk, Tehran or Pyongang instead.
^ no you completely misinterpreted what I said and tried to make it political. Anyway I wish you many flights via Amsterdam this summer and camping in front of the terminal where the lines for security start.
DeleteThe vast majority of transfers in Amsterdam are completely trouble-free. Don't believe the doom and gloom in the media. There were security queue issues at LHR, LGW and AMS last summer but that was only at peak times and it didn't affect transfers. Luggage was an issue at FRA and LHR at some points this year but only for a small minority of passengers.
DeleteWell I had an evening transfer through Amsterdam last May. I got notice that my onward flight was cancelled when I landed in Amsterdam. After 3 hours I got rerouted and scheduled to fly the following day. No one could tell me what would happen with my luggage. I left the airport (had to wait an hour at passport control) so I would not sleep in the terminal. I had to arrive at 3.30am for a 7.30am flight and had to wait for two hours in the cold outside in a line for security which is on the second floor of the terminal. When I finally got in I went to transfer desk to see about my luggage only to find out that the transfer desks would not open till 8AM! The KLM ticketing desk near check in was also closed and there were lines everywhere inside the terminal for everything (shops, lounges, toilets).
DeleteI transit through MUC at least 12-15 times a year and have never ever had any issues, not even during last summer. FRA is a different story, of course.
DeleteExcuse me but what's wrong with Minsk? Before they got sanctions, Belavia was a superb and very reliable option when flying from Western Europe to Russia and the CIS, even the Baltic region. What a nasty and uneducated comment.
DeleteI agree, I dont know whats wrong with Minsk...they were a very good Airline and only because of the will of some politicians they got scanctioned...
DeleteΒΑ is also cutting scheduled flights not only in our region but all over Europe.
ReplyDeleteThey would focusing more on tourist destinations.
Business and VFR travel are still nowhere near the prepandemic levels.
In the case of Lufthansa, I think it has nothing to do with demand (at least on these short haul routes) otherwise they would have cut flights out of Frankfurt too. I believe it has more to do with staffing.
DeleteBritish Airways has a simple schedule model at the moment: cut capacity on continental destinations (like CDG, DUS, PRG, PRN, ZAG, most northern English airports) and shift capacity to coastal ones (SPU is growing for example)
Deleteyeah but they increased Ljubljana aswell
DeleteUnfortunate. Hope they do eventually grow those flights in July.
ReplyDeleteWhat a surprise...
ReplyDeleteInteresting that there is no impact on FRA. Why?
ReplyDeleteDamn
ReplyDeleteMore to come
ReplyDeleteI think they'll cut FRA-BEG as the third daily is selling for €450 one way.
ReplyDeleteOr it is full.
DeleteWhy would they cut it if it is selling for so high price?
DeleteBecause all of those flights have the same high price.
Deleteso sales must be good if they keep prices high.
DeleteWill Croatia Airlines increase ZAG-MUC?
ReplyDeleteNo
DeleteYes.
DeleteHahahahahahahaha
DeleteYes, they are wellknown for their prompt reactions to changes on the market, locally and globaly. LOL once again
DeleteAs I know from experience of transferring at both Frankfurt and Munich from Ljubljana, it would be much better to keep the 2nd daily to MUC and cut FRA to 2 daily flights, as transfers in Munich are much easier.
ReplyDeleteThere are not only transfer passengers on these FRA-BEG flights. There are a lot of P2P passengers on this route who are glad there is third daily LH flight.
DeleteYes but I am talking about Ljubljana and I doubt that there is as much P2P passangers between Fra and Lju for 3 daily flights I think that they are pretty much intended for the connections. But as of Beg I understand three daily flights or even more.
DeleteSorry for misunderstanding. My bad.
DeleteNo problem! And I see your point with BEG and triple daily flights because there is much more P2P traffic to FRA...
DeleteSurely if MUC will only have one daily to LJU they will fly with a320s as they already operate a lot of flights with A319 and it's not as much traffic as it will be in the summer?
ReplyDeleteCurrently it's still scheduled with CRJ900.
DeleteI think they will go with e95 or a319s for sure. Similarly to FRA last year
DeleteJU should think about Munich and give some competition to LH. I wonder why they have never attempted it?
ReplyDeleteIt is eternal secret.
DeleteI think that JU definitely has some interest for MUC. However, in order to fight with LH they need competitive time slots, which is now almost impossible to receive due to complete chaos in the airports.
DeleteRemember, JU even had to fight for their existing pre-covid slots in FRA, otherwise we would've witnessed many frequency cuts.
With Luftika flying 3x daily to BEG there must be room for at least 1x daily for JU. There just must be.
DeleteDon't forget that JU flies to NUE and W6 to FMM. They serve the same area as MUC.
DeleteTrue but they could still get a few transfer pax, and O&D pax.
DeleteBut, Munich is mostly for transfers and that's why it works for LH. How can that work for JU? Who would they have codeshare in Munich with? If you cannot transfer, what's the point? No one would bother to go pick up the luggage, and then go back through checkin, passport and security check queues if they have 2-3 daily flights with LH. Am I missing something?
DeleteYes, you’re missing the locals and diaspora traveling to BEG.
DeleteI don’t even think that LH would be hurt by JU starting BEG-MUC. The W6 would be attacked again.
OK, so for JU that would be pure O&D route, when they already fly to NUE and W6 flies to FMM from both BEG and INI and LH flies 2-3 daily flights to MUC. I have no idea what the numbers are, but it does sound a bit crowded.
DeleteBelgrade has lots of alternatives thanks to a wide destination network by Air Serbia. Zagreb has lots of alternatives because Croatia Airlines flies to Munich multiple times daily as well as Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich so rebooking is easy. But what about Ljubljana? LJU really needs the extra MUC flight. Slovenia urgently needs to do something.
ReplyDeleteI guess we need to wait until these subsidies are given to the applied airlines and hopefully if no airline will apply to base an aircraft here at least airlines apply to get their routes subsided like KLM to Amsterdam, Austrian to Vienna...
DeleteLH is a complete mess. Avoid at all cost. I had two flight cancelations in three months (na adverse weather or increased traffic). When they do manage to follow through with the flight, there is a high probability it will be delayed.
ReplyDelete+ 1000% I hate them too with passion especially because their staff is rude! + they are our eternal enemies!
DeleteHow dare you? Danke Deutschland! Bravo Hrvatska! LOL!!!
DeleteSmanji histeriju.
DeleteI'm awoiding Lufthansa anyhow. I fly bussines class all the time for work (meaning weekly) and probably worst experience ever in business class was LF flight to LAX. Just shameful company.
ReplyDeleteBasically they (LH group) don't have anything to offer that will lure more average passengers. Just a bland yet bitterly overpriced LCC product, just like their liveries. And time is working against them, all their good cards are slipping from their hands. Wizz will massacre their ex yu market in future and they have only just started.
ReplyDeleteOpustite se sa prigovorima. Drugi, kao ja npr., imaju sasvim druga islustva sa Lufthansom. Pozitivna!
DeleteFra is now pushed out to May for the third flight
ReplyDeleteFrom where?
DeleteBEG-FRA but some flights until May have the new schedule.
DeleteSo no changes for LJU's 3rd daily flight from FRA for now?
DeleteI live in Canada. When you look at the scedules of AC, WS and PD, flights for this summer are far from ehat it was pre pandemic. The other day, I heard on the news that there is a pilit shortage and that's why things won't be back to normal until next year. The city I live in has a small airport. In summer we usually have 12 departures per day. This summer it still sits at only five.
ReplyDeleteI had the worst experience with LH last year, amongst the other bad experiences in the last 10 I had flying with them..Since then I stopped even looking at flights operated by LH...They are not even a shadow of the company they used to be..They left us 6 hours in the plane on the route GYD- FRA, we had emergency landing on new IST aiport due to engine problems...not even offering us water, or allowing us to use toilet...don't want to mention that they didn't even consider approaching to the airport building and letting us out..plane full of kids, Azeri pax..one kid finally peed in the middle of the corridor, so crew decided to allow small kids using toilet ( after 4 hours )...the rest of os were 6 hours without toilet, water..with them, never again
ReplyDeleteSounds like a well lubricated German machine! .... )))
DeleteAbout the lubrication : They function only if everything is in perfect order. The slightest deviation from standard operating routine, creates a total mess and chaos. They are totally unadaptable, with zero sense for improvisation under changed circumstances, and to any justified criticism or complaint about it, their response is ultra mega rudeness. They are rude, unsincere and false by default even in normal situation, and it triples with anything extraordinary happening.
DeleteMeanwhile United is increasing almost every destination in Europe. I guess they are profiting from Lufthansa literally falling apart. Basically they have shown to all of us that in the past year they did next to nothing to prepare for summer 2023.
ReplyDeleteHopefully airlines like JU, LO, A3... push them out of key European markets.
"I guess they are profiting from Lufthansa literally falling apart."
DeleteLH doesn't really care because they share all TATL revenue due to the JV.
They do care because UA is taking over and passengers are getting used to their brand.
DeleteLufthansa might not care in practice but in reality thru are being pushed out.
Global recession incoming
ReplyDeleteSkopje route not impacted - great success!
ReplyDeleteSarajevo isto:-)
Delete