The chaos at German airports is great. Lufthansa now wants to stabilize flight schedules and is responding with a significant increase in so-called ghost flights. Dozens of connections are affected every day.
The number of so-called ghost flights at Lufthansa continues to rise. This means empty flights that only transport luggage or crew members, but no passengers. An internal paper from the airline states that new measures should take effect from this Friday until at least next Thursday in order to stabilize the currently chaotic flight schedule. According to this, 105 further flights are to be canceled and 364 ghost flights are to be carried out at the Frankfurt am Main hub during this period.
This serves to "stabilize the crews" and improve the luggage situation. This would affect between 57 and 76 daily outgoing connections, depending on the day of the week and the traffic situation. A decision is to be made next week about a possible extension of the measure. Flights in the evening (around 37 percent) and in the afternoon (around 17 percent) are particularly affected. The ghost flights could take place without cargo and baggage, with empty containers or with just cargo. In addition, there could also be flights that are only loaded with so-called rush baggage – this means baggage that could not be loaded in time and has to be sent after the passengers.
According to information from ntv, more than 20,000 pieces of luggage are stored at Frankfurt Airport alone - but not exclusively from Lufthansa customers. They mostly belong to travelers to whom it should be sent after their departure on vacation because it could not be loaded onto the appropriate plane in time. In some cases, the delays were so great that many of those affected have already returned from vacation. The holiday addresses are on many suitcases - the home addresses can only be determined with difficulty.
