Lufthansa culls Berlin-New York route

Lufthansa is ending services between Berlin and New York, and it has nothing to do with tariffs, trade wars or Donald Trump. Lufthansa will stop linking the German capital with the US city’s John F. Kennedy airport after failing to bag optimal landing times needed to fill planes and turn a profit, CEO Carsten Spohr said Thursday.Lufthansa introduced the JFK service following the collapse of Air Berlin last year, serving the route five times weekly with an Airbus SE A330 wide-body jet. Trouble is, the flight departs Berlin’s Tegel airport at 5:35 p.m. and doesn’t arrive in the US until after 9:30 p.m. local time. The return service leaves at 11:20 p.m. and lands in Germany around noon the next day. Spohr looked at switching the New York route to Lufthansa’s no-frills Eurowings arm, which has a lower cost base, but the carrier was unable to secure more-attractive landing slots even after scouting out Newark airport in New Jersey. Lufthansa will retain a New York link of sorts, selling seats to Newark on flights operated by partner United Airlines, though people who want to stick with the German carrier will have to travel via Frankfurt. With the summer timetable travellers can also fly direct from Berlin with Delta.<br/>