Lufthansa to scrub 20,000 summer flights to save on fuel costs

Deutsche Lufthansa AG will scrub 20,000 uneconomic short-haul flights from its European summer schedule to save on jet fuel, which has doubled in price since the start of the Iran war.

The cuts will amount to 1 percent of available seat-kilometers and save around 40,000 tons of jet fuel, Europe’s largest airline group said in a statement late Tuesday. The move comes after the carrier last week announced the shut down of its Cityline regional unit and the grounding of 27 older, fuel-guzzling aircraft.

Lufthansa has taken some of the most drastic steps among global airlines since the conflict started, as it also contends with walkouts by pilots and cabin crew.

The first 120 cancellations were implemented Tuesday, effective until the end of May. Broader reductions through to the end of the summer scheduling season will be unveiled by late April or early May.

Globally, industry capacity for May has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all but one of the 20 largest airlines slashing flights, according to data compiled by analytics firm Cirium Ltd. It’s revising an initial prediction of 4 percent to 6 percent growth for the year and says a decline of as much as 3 perceny is possible under certain conditions.

Lufthansa is trying to boost profitability with a plan to cut 4,000 administrative jobs by 2030 and shift more short-haul flying to lower-cost units such as City Airlines and Discover, where crew costs are as much as 40 percen lower than at the flagship airline.