By Pierre Bertrand

Eurowings reduced its number of flights from Germany's Hamburg airport for next year due to increasing airport charges and said it was considering reductions in other German cities.

Eurowings, a Deutsche Lufthansa group subsidiary, said it will remove more than 1,000 flights servicing Hamburg, moving them elsewhere. The company has 16 planes based at the airport.

The capacity cut means the company won't offer its Hamburg to Cologne Bonn Airport connection as part of its summer flight offerings, which it said was popular among business travelers.

Eurowings also expects to remove six other destinations in Europe and North Africa departing from Hamburg from its flight program.

The company said the measures taken were a first step and that it was considering closing further routes at other German airports as German and European costs were making flying to and from the country increasingly expensive and unprofitable.

"This development could have been avoided. But the airport's plans for a completely disproportionate increase in charges leave us no choice," Eurowings Chief Executive Jens Bischof said.

The cut by Eurowings comes as Irish low-cost airline Ryanair on Thursday cut its summer traffic in Germany by 12% due to high costs, and in the process cut its operations in Hamburg by 60%.

Write to Pierre Bertrand at pierre.bertrand@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 11, 2024 07:03 ET (11:03 GMT)

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