Flight cancellations and fare hikes due to Iran war ‘will hit holidays’, EU warns

Flight cancellations and air fare hikes “will hit holidays” due to the threat of aviation fuel shortages stemming from the war in Iran, the EU’s energy commissioner has warned.   

 

Dan Jorgensen told Sky News: "Even if we do everything we can do, if the jet fuel is not there, then it’s not there.

 

"Unfortunately, it’s very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets."

 

He added: "[Currently] it is primarily a crisis of prices and not yet a crisis of supply, but unfortunately we cannot be sure to prevent a crisis of supply, especially on jet fuel in the future, if the crisis continues.

 

"If we had peace tomorrow and the Strait of Hormuz opens, I think we will manage without that happening, but I have to say that even in the best-case scenario the price crisis will still last for quite some time."

 

His comments came as Lufthansa Group disclosed plans for further schedule trimming after confirming that 20,000 short-haul flights will be axed over the summer due to soaring jet fuel prices blamed on the Iran conflict.

 

The company said it would save about 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the war.

 

The cancellation of flights previously operated by Lufthansa CityLine reduces group’s summer capacity by one percent of available seat kilometers (ASK).

 

It will temporarily stop flying to and from Cork, Heringsdorf, Gdansk, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Sibiu, Stuttgart, Trondheim, Tivat and Wrocław.

 

The schedule adjustments reduce the number of unprofitable short-haul flights across the Lufthansa Group network.

 

The first 120 daily flight cancellations were implemented on Tuesday, effective until the end of May.

 

“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,” the company said.

 

“This will include optimisations to the short-haul offering for the entire summer season, thereby ensuring schedule stability for the flight plan period.”

 

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,” the group noted.

 

“However, due to the increase in jet fuel prices, this will be achieved significantly more efficiently than before.”

 

Lufthansa Group is also accelerating the consolidation of European networks within its hub carriers - Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and ITA Airways.

 

Three destinations have been temporarily removed from the current flight schedule with the cancellation of routes from Frankfurt to Bydgoszcz and Rzeszów in Poland as well as Stavanger in Norway.

 

“For the flights scheduled in the summer timetable, the group expects a largely stable fuel supply,” a statement said.

 

“Lufthansa is pursuing a range of measures to this end, including the physical procurement of jet fuel as well as price hedging.”

 

The latest measures come after Lufthansa said last week it was accelerating the closure of CityLine, retiring 27 aircraft “to reduce further losses”.