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Lufthansa cuts flights and services to Berlin

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Lufthansa cuts flights and services to Berlin
Photo: DPA

Lufthansa, Germany's biggest airline, said on Friday it will cut back flights to and from Berlin in the face of the seemingly never-ending debacle surrounding the German capital's new airport.

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From the end of March, the carrier will scrap services between Berlin and a number of European cities, including Manchester in Britain, Lyon in France and the Hungarian capital Budapest, a Lufthansa spokesman said.

It will also halve flights to Geneva, Milan and Stockholm and scale back services to the German cities of Stuttgart, Cologne and Düsseldorf, he added.

In all, Lufthansa would pull two of its 15 aircraft based in Berlin, the spokesman explained.

One of the main reasons given were the repeated delays to the planned opening of the new Berlin-Brandenburg airport as a result of a raft of technical difficulties and construction errors.

The capital's current main airport in Tegel was simply not big enough to handle the increased traffic that Lufthansa had anticipated for the new airport, he explained. But insufficient demand on some of the services was also a reason.

"A number of routes simply haven't met our expectations," he said.

Lufthansa is currently on a massive cost-cutting programme, including plans to axe 3,500 administrative jobs in a drive to boost operating profit.

AFP/mjl

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