Lufthansa has recently been sending out a letter apologizing for their part in the global travel fiasco which so far has marked the summer of 2022. It’s a bold way for an airline to take some responsibility and layout how they hope to remedy the huge issues facing airlines. We approve and think this is a very refreshing approach and so offer the letter here for all to see. 

Warning – nothing will be fixed in the near future.

“Two tough years of perceived and actual grounding lie behind us in aviation. All our Lufthansa Group employees have been wishing for nothing more throughout than to finally be able to welcome you back aboard our more than 750 aircraft. 

Unfortunately, however, as the Northern Hemisphere summer begins and with global travel restrictions now almost all lifted, everyone involved in aviation worldwide is reaching almost daily the limits of the resources that are currently available. And the ramp-up of the complex air transport system from almost zero to now almost 90 per cent is clearly not proceeding with the reliability, the robustness and the punctuality that we would like to offer you again. 

We can only apologize to you for this. And we want to be completely honest: In the coming weeks, as passenger numbers continue to rise, be it for leisure or business travel, the situation is unlikely to improve in the short term. Too many employees and resources are still unavailable, not only at our infrastructure partners but in some of our own areas, too. Almost every company in our industry is currently recruiting new personnel, with several thousand planned in Europe alone. However, this increase in capacity will only have its desired stabilizing effect by the time winter comes. 

In addition, the ongoing war in Ukraine is severely restricting available airspace in Europe. This is leading to massive bottlenecks in the skies and thus, unfortunately, to further flight delays. 

In the summer of 2023, we not only expect to have a much more reliable air transport system worldwide. We will be welcoming you back on board our Airbus A380s, too. We decided today to put the A380, which continues to enjoy great popularity, back into service at Lufthansa in summer 2023. In addition to this, we are further strengthening and modernizing our fleets with some 50 new Airbus A350, Boeing 787 and Boeing 777-9 long-haul aircraft and more than 60 new Airbus A320/321s in the next three years alone. 

We promise you that our more than 100,000 Lufthansa Group employees will be doing everything humanly possible to provide you with the best possible air travel experience in the coming weeks, even under the current difficult circumstances. And they will be doing all this with a commitment that deserves the highest respect, not only from us on our Group Executive Board. 

So on behalf of all our employees, I sincerely hope that you feel very welcome on board after your return, which is something we have all been keenly awaiting. We thank you for your loyalty; and we hope we may count on your understanding, too, should your journey not yet go quite as expected or planned. 

We are doing our utmost to again offer you the quality, the punctuality and the reliability that you can rightly expect from your Lufthansa Group airlines as soon as we possibly can. “