Exploding Ticket Prices: Lufthansa Temporarily only Selling the Most Expensive Booking Classes

Lufthansa Airbus A350

Lufthansa is preparing for a massive wave of flight cancellations with an unusual step. As the airline announced today, almost all booking classes were withdrawn from sale for several days. For flights up to the end of July, only the most expensive fare is available for sale.

The result: Almost every one-way flight within Europe suddenly costs more than €500. This can be observed on Google Flights. The following price history shows the ticket prices for a flight from Frankfurt to Amsterdam on July 27:

Swiss, Austrian, Eurowings & Brussels Airlines are initially not affected. This is only about Lufthansa incl. Cityline and Air Dolomiti.

High Ticket Prices Should Prevent Bookings

Lufthansa certainly knows that nobody will book their holiday trip at these prices. Instead, the airline wants to ensure that not too many tickets are sold. An email to sales partners states:

Lufthansa would like to offer all guests affected by a flight cancellation an alternative travel option. To ensure this, the availability on Lufthansa flights within Germany and Europe, as well as to the USA and Canada, was temporarily reduced to one booking class per travel class.

In other words: Lufthansa will cancel many flights – and needs as much space as possible on other planes to rebook the affected customers. Each additional passenger would therefore only be an obstacle.

In the same email, renewed flight cancellations for flights from July to mid-September 2022 are announced. These should primarily affect flights within Germany and Europe. Holiday destinations are therefore only affected to a small extent.

Implementation Details

The removal of cheaper booking classes initially only affects flights with Lufthansa and Air Dolomiti in the following periods:

  • all flights in Europe until July 31, 2022
  • all long-haul routes to North America until August 10, 2022

Only the booking classes Y (Economy), G (Premium Economy), J (Business) and F (First) are then available. The measure will initially apply until July 5, 2022. After that, the ticket prices should drop again – provided there are still seats available after all the rebookings.

Conclusion

The fact that Lufthansa is taking such a step indicates a massive wave of cancellations. In anticipation of these flight cancellations, it is to be welcomed that Lufthansa is giving passengers with existing tickets priority. If, however, you wanted to buy a ticket – or want to rebook an existing ticket – you now have a problem.

Anyone affected by a flight cancellation should keep the European air passenger rights in mind. If they cancel your flight within 14 days of departure, you can expect compensation of between €125 and €600 – in addition to rebooking on an alternative connection.

Cover Picture: © Lufthansa

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