Air transport “It makes no sense at all” – Ghost flights continue in Europe due to pandemic, 18,000 unnecessary flights at Lufthansa alone during the winter

In Europe the sky will still be filled this winter with ghost flights so that airlines can maintain their take-off and landing times at Europe’s largest airports.

Tens of thousands of empty or almost empty flights may be flown in Europe, as the CEO of the German airline Lufthansa, for example, Carsten Spohr admitted In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in December that the company will have to fly 18,000 unnecessary flights this winter. Brussels Airlines, part of the same group, says it will fly 3,000 flights without passengers this season, a Belgian Le soir reported in the beginning of January.

Lufthansa also said it would cancel 33,000 flights scheduled for the winter season. The figure corresponds to 10 percent of the flights in its winter flight plan.

So-called ghost flights refer to empty or almost empty flights that are flown in order for airlines to maintain their take-off and landing flights at major airports. If so-called slots are not used, airlines may lose them.

The same phenomenon was already present at the beginning of the corona pandemic in March 2020, when British airlines said they would have to fly half-empty or even empty planes to hold their flight slots. In March 2020, focusing on the aviation industry Simple Flying media reportedthat, for example, the airline Ryanair also flew ghost flights.

Recent examples show that now, almost two years later, the phenomenon has not disappeared.

Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) Director of Aviation Jari Pöntinen according to Finnish airlines do not fly ghost flights.

According to Pöntinen, however, empty aircraft are used in Central Europe, for example. Pöntinen clarifies that flight slots are especially valuable for network airlines, as they have to maintain certain schedules for onward connections.

In other words, if a European airline’s plane flies, for example, from Paris to Helsinki, from where passengers continue to Tokyo, for example, it will be important to maintain certain flight slots. If the airline loses its slot and a reasonable schedule, such a network principle would be scrapped, Pöntinen says.

Pöntinen states that ghost flights are environmentally insane and are not responsible for cost reasons either.

“No plane is meant to fly empty. They make no sense at all from the point of view of the environment, ”says Pöntinen.

European Union at the beginning of the corona pandemic, it abandoned its rule that airlines had to use at least 80% of their slots. If companies do not meet the deadlines, they may lose out to competitors.

During the pandemic, the limit has been restored, but it has been reduced to 50 percent. In December, the Commission said that in the summer season the limit is 64 percent.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications said on Twitter on Monday that the Minister of Transport and Communications Timo Harakka (sd) has called on the European Commission, together with its Belgian, Danish and Italian ministerial colleagues, for more flexibility in its rule on flight slots.

European Commission Spokesman for Transport Stefan de Keersmaecker said on Twitter last Thursday that EU rules do not oblige airlines to fly empty.

“The decision to fly or not to fly is a commercial decision made by the airline, not the result of EU rules,” De Keersmaecker writes.

According to him, the 50% limit is based on data and forecasts from Eurocontrol, which is responsible for the smooth running of European aviation. The arrangement was widely accepted by stakeholders, he writes.

According to Eurocontrol In Europe, an average of 67% of flights were flown last week compared to 2019. In March 2022, Eurocontrol forecasts air traffic at 85% compared to 2019.

According to De Keersmaecker, airlines can also request an exemption from not filling slots if the route cannot be operated, for example, when a new virus variant emerges.

A senior Commission official said news agency Reuters, that the ghost flight debate is about “unnecessary gossip”. He says there is no evidence that airlines, including Lufthansa, fly empty flights.

German According to Deutsche Welle A Lufthansa spokesman stressed that 18,000 flights are not empty flights. Instead, Lufthansa talks about unnecessary flights. However, the spokesman noted that there is little demand for flights, but they have to fly because of flight slots.

Nearly In the summer of 2021, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 290 airlines, was still vehemently criticizing the Commission’s decision to limit the use of 50% of flight slots. According to IATA the Commission’s decision is contrary to all the evidence submitted to it.

According to IATA, it was ironic that earlier this summer the Commission announced a plan to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. Fit for 55 climate package, but the flight decision may force airlines to fly regardless of the level of demand.

The Commission was criticized by Lufthansa Spohr in December. According to Deutsche Welle, a spokesman for Lufthansa said that the United States, for example, had temporarily abandoned its slot rules during the corona pandemic.

IATA’s words have eased since the summer, in December IATA, for its part, thanked the Commission that the decision to raise the limit to 64% during the summer season came in time and that it had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Lufthansa has also been criticized. Low cost airline according to Ryanair Lufthansa just wants to protect its flight slots so that it does not lose them to low-cost airlines.

Finnair has stated that it does not fly ghost flights. Finnair Communications Manager Mari Kanervan according to “we don’t think it makes sense to fly completely empty flights”.

Kanerva replies by e-mail that customers at several airports important to the company have also used routes during the corona pandemic. In addition, Kanerva states that Finnair also has smaller aircraft sizes in its fleet, which has also made it possible to operate several flights, even though there have been fewer customers.

In long-haul traffic in particular, high freight demand supports flying on some routes, even with smaller passenger numbers, Kanerva says.

Last week, Finnair announced that it would proactively cut about 20 per cent of its scheduled flights in February due to sick leave due to the micron transformation and the flu season.