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DALLAS - Owing to inadequate staffing across the aviation industry, Lufthansa (LH) and Eurowings have become the latest carriers to cancel flights during the peak vacation season.
In a statement, LH announced that it will cancel 900 domestic and short-haul flights from its Frankfurt and Munich rosters in July. The cancellations will impact flights on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The disruptions equate to 5% of the airline's expected volume on weekends, according to the carrier.
Lufthansa also announced that its Eurowings (EW) budget subsidiary would cancel hundreds of flights in July.
While it was encouraging that demand was quickly returning as the COVID-19 outbreak began to subside, the German group noted that aviation systems had not yet been fully rebuilt.
Comments from Lufthansa
"Bottlenecks and staff shortages impact the whole aviation industry, particularly in Europe." Airports, ground services, air traffic control, and airlines are all affected," said LH via a press release.
The airline and Eurowings said they had taken steps to attempt to preserve operations. "However, it is anticipated that flight schedules will not be able to function as planned due to the shortages."
As a result, LH is canceling flights ahead of time to give customers greater notice. "Lufthansa and Eurowings did not take this choice lightly, and we regret the cancellations as well as the inconvenience to customers."
In recent weeks, airlines throughout the United Kingdom have been canceling flights to eliminate last-minute cancellations when travelers are already at the airport. Due to staff shortages at Amsterdam Schiphol, KLM has also forced to cancel flights (AMS).
Together with airline employee sickness, issues have arisen due to a shortage of ground handling and security personnel, resulting in long lineups for security checks and bag reclaims.
Featured image: Lufthansa D-AIXN Airbus A350-900. Photo: Julian Schöpfer/Airways
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