The German air transport giant Lufthansa announced on Thursday that it would cut some 900 flights in July, in a context of staff shortages affecting the entire European aviation sector.
Cancellations despite Covid-19
Welcoming the rebound in bookings with the lifting of most anti-Covid-19 restrictions in Europe, Lufthansa admitted in a press release that it was unable to meet such demand.
“The infrastructure has not yet fully recovered” from “the most serious crisis suffered by aviation” which was the coronavirus pandemic, explains Lufthansa.
Faced with "bottlenecks and a shortage of personnel" from which "the entire aviation sector is suffering, particularly in Europe", the group decided in July to cancel 900 German and European flights scheduled for Fridays and weekends departing from and destination of the "hubs" of Frankfurt and Munich.
Not the only group in trouble
Lufthansa is not the first European group to give up flights for lack of personnel.
In May, the Dutch company KLM had canceled dozens of flights.
“The immediate challenge is to manage the sudden increase in traffic, given that the pandemic has had the effect of enormously reducing the resources of airports and ground handling”, acknowledged in early May Olivier Jankovec, the general manager. of ACI Europe, the main association of European airports.
There is a lack of personnel both in airports and air traffic control and in airlines.
But the sector is struggling to rehire while the labor market is "very tight across Europe", according to Mr. Jankovec.
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