Lufthansa registers new subsidiary, dismisses 281 pilots

Swiss cancels hundreds more flights this summer

Swiss (LX, Zurich) has cancelled hundreds more flights - this time between August and October 2022 - to ease growing capacity constraints on its schedule and the country's airport system as the high summer season approaches.

A total of 676 flights representing 2% of the airline's planned flight programme of 31,414 services between August and October are affected, Swiss announced in a statement. The move, it said, would minimise the risk of short-notice cancellations or schedule modifications.

The airline already cut about 100 flights in July and August affecting around 30,000 passengers.

Sister carrier Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) has slashed about 3,000 flights at its Frankfurt Int'l and Munich hubs during the summer. Traffic bottlenecks at European airports have also forced capacity cuts at Eurowings, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and easyJet, amongst others.

Swiss said it was responding to "huge operational challenges" and a "very tense situation" throughout the airline industry, following rising COVID infections in some European countries, significant capacity constraints, and strikes at...

Lufthansa to reactivate A380s in 2023

After months of speculation sparked by a more rapid than expected recovery in demand, Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) has now confirmed that it will indeed reactivate an unspecified number of A380-800s in 2023.

"The company is currently checking how many A380s will take off again and which destinations the aircraft will fly to," the German holding said.

Lufthansa operated fourteen A380s before the COVID-19 pandemic. All of them are currently in deep storage at Teruel (twelve) and Lourdes/Tarbes (two) airports. The German holding sold six back to Airbus, but the remaining eight can still be reactivated. The entire sub-fleet is 10.7 years old on average, according to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module.

The airline has been struggling to secure sufficient widebody capacity as two of its three future platforms - the B787 and the B777X - are currently affected by manufacturing issues. All B787 deliveries have been on hold for nearly a year due to quality concerns, while the B777X is now unlikely to enter into service before 2025. Lufthansa...

Turkish shelves new AOC plans, eyes high-density aircraft

Lufthansa cancels further flights at Frankfurt, Munich

Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) has cancelled a further 2,200 of a total of around 80,000 flights at its hubs in Frankfurt Int'l and Munich for the summer following staff shortages resulting from short-notice sick calls from crews in the wake of increased COVID-19 infections in Germany.

"The cancellations will affect domestic German and intra-European flights in particular, but not the classic vacation destinations that are well booked during the vacation season. In addition, there may also be changes to the flight departure times," the airline said in a statement.

A few weeks ago, Lufthansa already removed more than 900 flights from the system for July, which affected schedules on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Subsidiary Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf) was also forced to take several hundred flights out of the system to stabilise its service for July, while Swiss (LX, Zurich) cancelled about 100 flights in July and August, affecting around 30,000 passengers.

This comes as the aviation industry, especially in Europe, struggles with airport bottlenecks and staff shortages,...