In its open letter, the German national carrier Lufthansa almost officially admitted that things are very bad – they apologized to tourists for mass cancellations of flights, but admitted in advance that in the short term the situation will not only improve, but even worsen, and immediately canceled more than 2 thousand flights. The number of passengers in the world continues to grow after the cancellation of covid, it is impossible to quickly increase the number of employees of airlines and airports, as a result, not only Lufthansa itself but also the entire aviation industry “every day reaches the limits of the resources that are currently available.”
“As the number of passengers continues to grow, whether, for leisure or business travel, the situation is unlikely to improve in the short term. Too many employees and resources are still unavailable,” Lufthansa said in a statement. It is stated that the carrier continues to recruit new personnel. But the number of people willing to fly in the summer is still high, which means that the industry will be in trouble until the winter time.
“Almost every company in our industry is recruiting new staff these days. However, the increase in capacity will have the desired stabilizing effect only until winter arrives,” added Lufthansa. European airports have similar staffing difficulties, so rapid improvement in the aviation industry cannot be expected.
The carrier announced another problem – closed skies due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the introduction of air sanctions, which seriously limited the available airspace in Europe. This, according to Lufthansa, is leading to massive “bottlenecks” in the skies and thus further flight delays.
At the same time, Lufthansa has already canceled thousands of flights. Just two weeks after it announced it was canceling 900 flights in Germany and Europe in July, the airline said a further 2,200 flights were being canceled from its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. Mainly domestic flights in Germany and Europe have been canceled.