While global oil and jet fuel prices have seen their first major drop in months since the start of the war with Iran, almost every major airline is adjusting their flying schedules well past the summer in response to widespread uncertainty across the Middle East.
German national airline Lufthansa removed 2,000 less-trafficked flights from its summer schedule between May and October while also shutting down regional airline CityLine a year earlier than initially planned. Delta, United, Air Canada, Air France and Aer Lingus are among the many other major airlines to similarly trim routes.
As one of the continent’s primary airlines, Lufthansa also serves the role of connecting the German hubs of Frankfurt and Munich with many smaller destinations across central and eastern Europe.
Lufthansa reduces flights to Croatia, Serbia and other countries
This week, several local news outlets are reporting that Lufthansa is scrapping a further 480 flights from its winter schedule running between October and March.
One of the victims of the cuts is the route between Munich and Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia that will only be brought back in March 2027 for the summer schedule.
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A flight between Frankfurt and Skopje Airport (SKP) in North Macedonia will also be cut three years after being launched. While not being cut entirely, many routes to Balkan cities such as Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo will be reduced from daily services to ones running several times a week.
The flight between Frankfurt and Zagreb will be run daily instead of twice a day as originally planned while the flight between Munich and Belgrade will be cut from 14 to 13 flights per week.
The German flag carrier has made sweeping flight cuts to both its summer and fall schedules.
Image source: Shutterstock
Many flights formerly run on CityLine cut from 2026 fall and winter schedule
Those who already booked travel will be contacted by an airline representative with either rebooking options or, should they wish not to take them, a refund to the original payment method. Travelers can also independently initiate a refund on any flight that is 24 hours from departure through the Lufthansa website.
Many of the cut routes were run on CityLine, a regional carrier that Lufthansa established in 1958 for flights that do not generate enough traffic for the mainstream carrier.
The aging fleet of 27 planes like the Airbus A319 and the Bombardier CRJ900 became increasingly challenging to maintain and, while the initial plan was to replace CityLine with the new Lufthansa City Airlines by 2027, an early decision to cancel all flights from April 2026 was made “in view of significantly increased kerosene prices, which have more than doubled compared to the period before the Iran war.”
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With the end of CityLine initially intended to be more gradual, dozens of flights to countries including Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia were cut and not replaced by the mainstream Lufthansa carrier due to low traffic numbers.
Lufthansa has previously said that streamlining low-traffic routes to focus on main hubs across Germany would be a part of its general strategy for the 2026-2027 year.