Lufthansa Cargo's freighter services to the U.S. and China are the worst affected by the shock decision Oct. 11 by the Hesse Administrative High Court in Germany to ban night flights at Frankfurt Airport. The carrier had planned for 10 night flights on its winter schedule beginning at the end of this month. A permanent ban could cost the carrier somewhere in the "double-digit millions of euros," said Karl Ulrich Garnadt, Lufthansa Cargo's CEO, during a press conference in Berlin.
The decision will affect 30 percent of Lufthansa Cargo's daily freighter departures from Frankfurt. The knock-on effect of the ruling in the Hesse regional court means Lufthansa Cargo has been forced to restructure 80 percent of services, Garnadt said.
A same-day delivery service to the U.S. over New York and Chicago is the main casualty of the ban. One night flight to Chicago will now depart from Leipzig instead of Frankfurt, but this will mean trucking urgent cargo almost 200 kilometers east from Germany's industrial heartland, resulting in a much earlier cutoff for shippers.
This one service aside, night flights from Frankfurt to New York and Chicago must switch to daytime for November and December.
