Lufthansa has notably reduced its planned growth to markets in the former Yugoslavia this summer, affecting its services to Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Belgrade. The flight reductions will impact operations from Munich as the airline looks to avoid the chaos of last summer caused by staff shortages. It has also reduced its planned long haul network. The select flight cancellations are currently in place until July but may be extended. As a result, its planned frequency growth from Munich to former Yugoslav capitals, which was to begin on March 26, will now start in July with the schedule to resemble that of last year until then at the earliest.
Lufthansa has cancelled plans to introduce a second daily service from Munich to Ljubljana from late March. Instead, it will run a daily late morning rotation from the Bavarian capital to Slovenia until July. Flights from Frankfurt will operate three times per day as planned. Similarly, Lufthansa has cancelled plans to add a second daily rotation between Munich and Zagreb until the peak summer months, running a single daily service instead with a similar schedule to its Ljubljana route. Its planned capacity increase to the Croatian capital, from the CRJ900s to the A320-family jets remains unchanged, as well as the double daily service from Frankfurt.
The German national carrier will maintain services between Munich and Belgrade twice per day until July, instead of the planned three daily rotation. It will have a morning and afternoon departure from the Bavarian city with its A320-familly fleet. Plans to increase its Frankfurt – Belgrade service to triple daily from late March remain unchanged, as does the introduction of flights from Frankfurt to Skopje in late April and the frequency growth from the German city to Sarajevo from daily to ten weekly.
“Our goal is to establish a reliable flight schedule. At present, the air traffic system does not forgive a single mistake. Every grain of sand, no matter how small, makes the gears grate”, Lufthansa’s CEO, Jens Ritter, said this week, Ex Yu Aviation news portal writes.
