Lufthansa has to cancel flights - because too many pilots are sick

Created: 12/23/2021 Updated: 12/23/2021, 12:59 PM

Lufthansa canceled several intercontinental flights over Christmas because too many pilots called in sick.

© Silas Stein / dpa

Even before the big Omikron wave, Lufthansa had problems providing enough staff for its flights.

It remains unclear whether the current wave of illness among pilots has anything to do with Corona.

Frankfurt / Main - At Lufthansa * so many pilots called in sick that the first intercontinental flights had to be canceled.

From December 23rd to 26th, connections across the North Atlantic to Boston, Houston and Washington, for example, are particularly affected, said a company spokesman on Thursday.

It is in this traffic area that passengers can most easily be rebooked.

A return flight to Japan has also been canceled.

Lufthansa: Planned buffer is insufficient for sickness rate

“We planned with a very large buffer. But that's not enough for the extremely high sickness rate, "said the spokesman. He did not want to speculate about a connection with the Corona variant Omikron, since Lufthansa was not informed about the type of diseases. First the portal “aero.de” reported on the staff shortages, which can only partially be met with volunteers.

Affected is the sub-fleet of long-haul Airbus A330 / A340 aircraft, for which we are urgently looking for replacement pilots for the period up to the beginning of January.

According to “aero.de”, the company warns in an internal circular: “Now, due to the increased disease rate, we are no longer able to manage all the trips.

The crew dispatcher is already working on scenarios to thin out the flight plan. ”In addition to the sickness reports, quarantine obligations * after certain flights make personnel planning more difficult.

Lufthansa: Tough negotiations with the pilots' union

Tough negotiations are currently underway between the pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) and the Lufthansa Group about the future cost structure of the parent company Lufthansa.

This should shrink in favor of more cost-effective platforms such as Eurowings Discover, which would inevitably cost high-paying jobs at Lufthansa.

Contracts were mutually terminated, so that strikes are theoretically possible again from the summer.

The Lufthansa Group recently announced that it had refined the existing emergency concepts and made them more flexible during the Corona * crisis.

You always have reserves in the background, said a company spokesman with a view to the Omikron * variant.

In Europe, the Christmas air traffic has fully started.

In particular, the direct flight providers Easyjet (+41 percent compared to the previous week) and Wizz Air (+75 percent) significantly expanded their offerings in the week before Christmas (December 16-22), according to figures from the flight safety organization Eurocontrol.

Wizz, SAS and Ryanair also offered more connections than in the same week of the pre-crisis year 2019. Lufthansa is a long way from that, with 21 percent fewer flights than two years ago.

In the short term, she only expanded her program by 1 percent.