Lufthansa shuts down CityLine and accelerates fleet changes due to rising fuel costs

The cost of oil is impacting the aviation industry heavily. Lufthansa is no stranger to the pain. The airline, like other European carriers, heavily hedges its oil supply. Nonetheless, it is feeling the impact of the energy shock that is resonating across the globe. This has pushed the Lufthansa Group to take immediate action to cut costs, and has also accelerated the phase-out of older aircraft.

In this post:

• Lufthansa shuts down immediately CityLine
• Lufthansa accelerates on other significant fleet changes
• So is really the fuel cost the cause, or is it the cover?
• Sign up to my newsletter

Lufthansa shuts down immediately CityLine

With fuel costs skyrocketing, Lufthansa has decided to shut down, with immediate effect, operations at its regional subsidiary Lufthansa CityLine.

The subsidiary operated regional and short-haul hubs from Lufthansa’s two main hubs in Munich and Frankfurt. It had a fleet consisting of 27 CRJs. The aircraft were nearing the end of their life, and with the setting up of Lufthansa City Airlines, the future of CityLine was very much destined to come to an end.

With fuel costs rising, that destiny was only accelerated more. With Lufthansa deciding to shut down operations immediately and is likely not to resume at all CityLine flights, shutting down that subsidiary and replacing it with Lufthansa City Airlines.

All crew has been moved over to other operations within the Lufthansa group.

Lufthansa accelerates on other significant fleet changes

The shutdown of Lufthansa CityLine isn’t the only significant news coming out of the Lufthansa Group on April 16th, 2026.

The German carrier is also announcing that it’s going to be retiring, grounding, and transferring aircraft within the next six months.

The Airbus A340-600 era is coming to an end, and very soon. The four remaining A340-600s will be retired by October 2026.

The Boeing 747-400 will follow the same fate. Initially, Lufthansa will ground two of its 747-400s in October. However, the remaining aircraft won’t be in service much longer. They are now scheduled for retirement in 2027.

The goal is to get rid of fuel-guzzling four-engine aircraft. With extremely high fuel prices, they are no longer an asset but a liability for the Lufthansa group. Therefore, the only four-engine aircraft remaining will be the 747-8i and the A380.

While on the retirement front, the Core Lufthansa Airline will also be reducing its short- and medium-haul fleet by five aircraft during winter 2026-2027.

As for transferring aircraft, the Lufthansa Group will be moving 9 Airbus A350-900s to Discover Airlines. This move will accelerate the leisure-focused airlines’ fleet modernization and its long-range capability.

Long-term administrative cost cutting

The last piece of news worth talking about from Lufthansa’s press release is that it is looking to cut also a substantial number of administrative positions by 2030.

More precisely, it is aiming to cut 4,000 administrative positions by 2030. That is, alongside a more careful scrutinization of new expenditure towards staff recruitment and external consulting.

So is really the fuel cost the cause, or is it the cover?

Now, we’ve unpacked a lot in this post. And although Lufthansa states openly that a lot of this has been accelerated by the oil price, it does make you think. Was this really caused all by the oil spike, or is it more of a cover for a much wider plan that had been in the works for much longer.

The oil spike in prices might just be the perfect cover-up, as we’ve seen AI be the perfect cover-up in other sectors of the economy.

The core Lufthansa airline has been performing rather poorly in recent years. While controlled airlines such as Swiss, Austrian, and even the latest entry ITA Airways have been performing well, the Lufthansa Core Airline hasn’t been keeping up.

So, some action was needed, and this could be possibly the perfect moment to take action while being excused by external factors.