Germany’s Lufthansa cuts Abu Dhabi flight

The service is ending in the summer of 2015 amid fierce regional competition.

“The service between Frankfurt and Abu Dhabi has become increasingly uneconomical for us. We are now taking the consequences," said Lufthansa. Michael Dalder / Reuters

“Substantial capacity has arisen in recent years on services between Germany and the United Arab Emirates because state-subsidised Gulf carriers have massively increased their presence,” Lufthansa said.

“The service between Frankfurt and Abu Dhabi has become increasingly uneconomical for us. We are now taking the consequences.”

The flights will end in summer 2015.

“This development has been further exacerbated by the fact that Etihad Airways has unfairly been allowed to offer and market code-sharing flights with airberlin,” Lufthansa claimed.

Last week, airberlin said German authorities had refused to grant permission for 34 codeshare flights with Etihad this winter, a decision that the carriers challenged.

Etihad said on Thursday that it hoped that talks next week with the German government would resolve “the misunderstanding on the interpretation of the codeshare provisions”.

Media reports attributed to airberlin yesterday said the German authorities had given approval to the codeshares. The authorities, however, could not be reached for comment.

The Abu Dhabi airline holds minority stakes in airberlin, Air Seychelles, Virgin Australia, Aer Lingus, Air Serbia and Jet Airways, and is currently in the process of formalising investments in Alitalia and Switzerland’s Etihad Regional, formerly Darwin Airline.

On Wednesday, Etihad said that revenue grew to US$1.8 billion in the three months to September, up from $1.4bn in the same period last year, as revenue from codeshares and partnerships hit $352 million during the period, a 44 per cent increase on last year’s figure.

Partnerships contributed 27 per cent of the airline’s overall passenger revenue, compared with 23 per cent last year. Codeshare and equity partnerships delivered about 1.1 million passengers to Etihad’s network, a year-on-year increase of 41 per cent.

Capa Centre for Aviation said yesterday said that Etihad’s “critical and unique” partner revenue was “clouded by growing protectionism, as seen with Germany’s recent rejection of Etihad-airberlin codeshares.”

“A key differentiating factor for Etihad is the large number of sales it receives from partners,” Capa said. “There could be a concern that restricting Etihad’s placement of its code on other airlines could spread to other airlines being restricted on placing their code on Etihad.”

On Thursday, Etihad said it would offer flights between Abu Dhabi and Vienna from next month through a codeshare with the Austrian carrier and airberlin subsidiary Niki – subject to government approval.

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