More airlines cancel summer flights and curb ticket sales to ease travel chaos       

Air France KLM and Lufthansa cut flight as the dream of pandemic recovery turns into a nightmare for airlines

KLM said it would 'strongly restrict' remaining ticket sales on its Cityhopper and European routes to allow customers affected by cancellations rebook. File picture

Two of Europe’s biggest airlines announced another round of cancellations, adding to the disruption turning the travel sector’s pandemic recovery summer into a nightmare. The Dutch arm of Air France-KLM plans to cancel as many as 20 round-trip flights to European destinations every day through the end of August. Lufthansa said it will cancel 770 flights in the coming week.

The European aviation industry has suffered unprecedented bottlenecks and long check-in lines at airports from London Heathrow to Dusseldorf and Dublin.

The disruptions have been brought on by labour disputes, staffing shortages and cost cuts during the pandemic that are now coming back to haunt airlines, just as travel roars back for the busy summer period.

With flights grounded, baggage is piling up at some airports. Three days of strikes last week at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport left tens of thousands of bags stranded at France’s biggest international hub. Remaining suitcases could take as long as a week to clear.

KLM’s measures are designed to “calm” operational stress on staff, the carrier said. Both carriers are trying to ease red-hot demand for tickets to alleviate pressure on operations.

KLM will “strongly restrict” remaining ticket sales on its Cityhopper and European routes to allow customers whose flights were cancelled rebook. Lufthansa is selling its remaining tickets for July for a minimum of €500 per leg, meaning even an economy-class round-trip from Frankfurt to Berlin is priced at €1,000. 

KLM’s move comes on top of an already significant cap in ticket sales by the airline, after the Schiphol hub took drastic measures to limit capacity this summer due to a shortage of security staff. A shortage of baggage handlers has left thousands of suitcases stranded at the Dutch airport, a spokesperson said.

• Bloomberg