Lufthansa Relocates Cape Town Service

Stricter night time curfews recently introduced at Frankfurt airport will force Lufthansa to relocate its busy Cape Town service to Munich. The decision was announced to the media by Kay Kratky, Lufthansa’s passenger manager, at Julys meeting of the Frankfurt aviation club, with reports appearing on airliners.de and news24.com.

Introduced at the end of 2011, the curfew at Frankfurt prohibits departures after 23.00. Lufthansa’s Cape Town service departs every evening at 22.15 and this restriction allows little if any leeway should a flight be delayed for any reason. According to Fraport (the operator of Frankfurt) around 14,000 passengers have been stranded overnight (because their flights failed to depart on schedule) since the new curfew took effect.

Some 10,000 of these were flying Lufthansa with the remainder booked with foreign carriers. Passengers have either been accommodated at nearby hotels or have had to sleep inside the airport terminal. Frankfurt is a major airline hub so only passengers who originate there will be inconvenienced as Lufthansa holds a monopoly for this route. Lufthansa passengers connecting from other airports in Germany or elsewhere in Europe will be offered connections to Cape Town via Munich.