Lufthansa Group reduces USA capacity; distributes cities between airlines

The Lufthansa Group, which includes Brussels Airlines, SWISS and Austrian Airlines among others, has made a number of changes to its flight schedules resulting in a decrease in services to the US. However, the group continues to serve major US cities through its various hubs, including Brussels, Zurich, Frankfurt and Vienna.

SWISS' Boeing 777-300ER pictured here on arrival into Singapore. Photo by Benjamin Liew │ AeroNewsX

The news comes after US President Donald Trump announced travel restrictions on flights from Europe to the US. In the last 24 hours, US President Donald Trump announced that travel restrictions would be placed onto all flights arriving from the 26 countries in the Schengen Area. Therefore, flights from Britain, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Turkey and Ukraine are not affected by the changes. The travel restrictions apply to anyone that isn’t a permanent American resident. Also exempted from the restrictions include spouses, parents or siblings of American citizens or permanent residents, members of the U.S. military and their spouses and children.

As a result, the Lufthansa Group has had to make some changes to its schedule. The group has made sure, however, that all destinations currently served will continue to be offered, through either of the group’s airlines or through code-share partner, United Airlines.

All transatlantic services from Munich, Düsseldorf and Geneva will be suspended until further notice. Select transatlantic services from Frankfurt, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels will continue to operate. This includes Lufthansa’s connections between Frankfurt and Chicago and Newark, SWISS’ flights between Zurich and Chicago and Newark, Austrian Airlines’ services connecting Vienna and Chicago and finally Brussels Airlines’ route between Brussels and Washington. Overall, the Lufthansa Group will be offering a total of 313 connections to 21 destinations in the United States from Europe during the winter schedule (ending 28 March).

Canada is not affected by the newly announced changes.

In other news, the group is still evaluating whether to suspend its services to India after the country announced updated entry regulations following the coronavirus outbreak.