KM Malta will not be affected by cancelled Lufthansa flights
Germany’s national airline cut 20,000 flights from its schedule through to October in a bid to save on jet fuel
KM Malta will not be affected by any of Lufthansa’s cancelled flights, Malta’s national carrier told Times of Malta.
“KM Malta Airlines has not cancelled any flights and continues to operate its planned schedules into and out of the three cities of Munich, Berlin and Düsseldorf in Germany, which it serves with Lufthansa,” the airline said.
Germany’s national airline has cut 20,000 flights from its schedule through to October in a bid to save on jet fuel.
The cancellations, which came into effect on Wednesday, will save Lufthansa some 40,000 tonnes of jet fuel, which the airline says has doubled in price since the outbreak of the Iran conflict.
Lufthansa is not the first airline to face jet fuel concerns following US-Israeli military strikes on Iran, which has moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
On Saturday, KM Malta Airlines chairman David Curmi told Times of Malta that a jet fuel shortage ahead of the summer months was a “real concern” for local airlines, even if Malta’s own supply remains intact.
“It’s a real concern,” he said. “Although in Malta we do not seem to have the problem, if there is a short supply on the other end, we still cannot operate as usual.”
David O’Brien, chief executive of Ryanair’s Malta subsidiary, Malta Air, meanwhile, said most of the airline’s main bases have sufficient fuel stocks to cover the six-week period.
A day earlier, Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air encountered jet fuel shortages at three airports in Italy.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has already warned that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so [of] jet fuel left”.