European Airlines Cancel Thousands of Winter Flights Amid Declining Demand

After a promising fall 2021 travel season, European airlines are compelled to significantly cut back their winter flight schedules due to a drop in bookings.

Lufthansa Group has announced the cancellation of 33,000 winter flights—about 10 percent of its total schedule—according to a statement from chairman and CEO Carsten Spohr sent to Dinogo.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the robust recovery of our business in the fall. However, from mid-January to February, we are witnessing a notable decline in bookings,” Spohr remarked.

Lufthansa Group is among Europe’s largest airline companies, including the German flag carrier Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings. The company has not detailed which specific flights will be cut or if transatlantic services are affected.

Lufthansa isn't the only European airline making cuts. Irish budget airline Ryanair is reducing its January schedule by 33 percent due to decreased bookings, which the airline has linked to the Omicron variant and stricter travel restrictions across Europe.

Ryanair has lowered its January capacity from around 10 million passengers to a range of 6 to 7 million. The airline stated that it is in a wait-and-see approach for February and March. “Given the current uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant... no adjustments to February or March schedules have been finalized. We will reassess these schedules in January as more scientific data on the Omicron variant becomes available,” Ryanair said in a release regarding the January adjustments.

The reduction in winter flights coincided with international airlines beginning to increase their European flight offerings for 2022. On December 14, Lufthansa announced it would be providing more flights to and from the United States in 2022 than ever before, including a new route from St. Louis, Missouri, to Frankfurt, which starts in June 2022 and marks the first nonstop flight to Europe from St. Louis in 20 years.

Lufthansa also plans to launch its inaugural flights to Stavanger, Norway; Liverpool, United Kingdom; and Rennes, France this year.

In mid-December, despite announcing that it would be cutting service to some smaller U.S. hubs, Delta Air Lines revealed it will resume flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Stockholm, Sweden, for 2022, marking a return that has been five years in the making, according to the airline.

The airline announced plans to run up to 70 daily flights connecting 21 destinations in Europe from 10 U.S. airports this summer.

If the financial markets are any indication, the current winter downturn in European travel may not last long. The Financial Times reported that airline stocks started to recover on January 4, fueled by optimism that the threat from the Omicron variant is beginning to diminish.

“The prevailing sentiment in the markets is that we have hit peak COVID,” said Roger Lee, head of U.K. equity strategy at Investec, in a comment to the Financial Times.