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Lufthansa to suspend Gatwick-Frankfurt flights

Lufthansa is to suspend its Gatwick-Frankfurt route over the coming winter – just a year after launching the service.

The German carrier only began the service in October 2011 and will suspend the twice-daily flights from October 28 but said it would resume flying on the route for the summer 2013 season from next March.

The airline is also cutting services from Frankfurt to Casablanca, Larnaca, Palma in Majorca, and Naples for the coming winter.

Lufthansa revealed the short-haul route cuts as it announced increased operating profits for the second quarter of 2012 despite high oil prices and aviation taxes.

The German group beat the expectations of financial analysts with a 27.6 per cent increase in operating profit of €361 million for the three months between April and June. Revenue was up by six per cent to €14.5 billion for the group which also includes Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Germanwings.

But despite this upturn in fortunes, Lufthansa still made an operating loss of €20 million for the first half of 2012.

“High fuel costs, persistent price pressure, the air traffic tax payable in Germany and Austria and fees for emissions trading certificates all diminished the group’s profit,” said Lufthansa in a statement.

The company added that it had benefited from restricting capacity and a restructuring of subsidiary Austrian Airlines.

“The capacity measures implemented in the first half-year, along with higher traffic revenue, did have a positive effect on the company’s earnings, but were not able to make up for higher fuel expenses and costly increases of fees and charges,” said Lufthansa.

It is the second time in a few days that a major European airline produced better than expected results. Air France KLM also beat analyst forecasts on Monday when it announced reduced losses of €66 million for the three months from April to June.

British Airways’ owner IAG is due to announce its first-half figures on Friday.

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