Lufthansa wants to cut 100 domestic flights per week

Because some routes have not been profitable for years, Lufthansa no longer wants to serve them. Connections are to be dropped in the summer of 2026.

A Lufthansa maintenance hangar in Hamburg: the Airbus A340 is too long for the hall, the aircraft's tail protrudes through a special opening when the hangar doors are closed.

(Image: Knut Gielen)

Oct 18, 2025 at 8:55 pm CEST

2 min. read

By

Nico Ernst

In an interview with "Welt am Sonntag", Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr announced that the airline will soon reduce its flight offerings within Germany. Around 100 connections are to be cut in the coming summer, including feeder flights from regional airports that have so far been connected to the major hubs.

As Spohr told the newspaper, flights from Munich to Münster/Osnabrück and from Munich to Dresden are "under review". Lufthansa is "losing money every day" on these routes. According to Spohr, the reason is the state-imposed location costs, which are said to have doubled since 2019.

Spohr did not name further routes intended for cuts beyond the two mentioned, according to the preliminary report by Welt am Sonntag. The Chairman of the Executive Board of Lufthansa AG said that the route cuts are unavoidable without a reduction in location costs. He did not mention other factors.

Ryanair is also cutting routes

Lufthansa's announcement comes shortly after similar announcements from Ryanair. The Irish low-cost airline announced on Wednesday this week that it will offer 800,000 seats fewer in its upcoming winter flight schedule within Germany. This corresponds to a reduction of around ten percent compared to the previous year. 24 routes are to be cut, including connections from Berlin/Brandenburg, Memmingen, and Cologne. Ryanair also cited location costs as the reason.

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All airlines are suffering from persistently weak demand on their domestic routes, which has never reached the figures from before the Corona pandemic, reports Tagesschau. Industry associations attribute this to fewer business travelers, who have replaced many personal meetings with video conferences.