Lufthansa adjusts capacities on intercontinental routes

Lufthansa today announced cuts in the airline's capacity on intercontinental routes, stating the cuts are in response to the sharp fall in passenger bookings, particularly on routes to America and Asia. Additional services scheduled by the airline for the summer timetable are to be postponed from 30 March. As a result, the long-range fleet will be reduced by seven aircraft.

The majority of cuts will affect services to North America, which Lufthansa says have been hit particularly badly by the slump in demand following the outbreak of war in Iraq. On routes from Frankfurt to New York, Boston and Los Angeles, for  example, one flight per day will be axed. In addition, individual flights from Frankfurt to Phoenix and Dallas will be scrapped, and smaller aircraft will deployed between Frankfurt and Philadelphia. On routes to South America, frequencies to Caracas will be reduced from six to three per week.

In Asia, services to Nagoya will not be boosted from three to five a week as planned, and smaller aircraft will serve Osaka and Seoul. In the Africa traffic region, seasonal services on the Munich-Johannesburg route will be terminated early, from 7 May 2003. All Lufthansa services to the Middle East will operate as normal, except for flights to Dammam and Kuwait, which have been suspended for security reasons.

Lufthansa has said further capacity reductions may be necessary on short and long-haul routes, and that any further decisions will be taken at short notice and based on  customer demand.

In February of this year the Lufthansa announced cuts in capacity on domestic and European routes. Consequently, 31 Lufthansa aircraft and 17 aircraft operated by Lufthansa CityLine and regional partners were taken out of service.