#DoItAgainAdina: Prevent 18,000 empty flights by Lufthansa!

The Issue

German | English

I'm Nathan, actor/influencer, 22 years old and it upsets me! Due to an EU regulation on the allocation of take-off and landing permits at airports, Lufthansa will allow over 18,000 completely or almost unoccupied planes to take off from January 2022. According to an analysis by Greenpeace, there will even be around 100,000 empty flights taking off in Europe (source: The Guardian). We must prevent thousands of planes from taking off unnecessarily in times of climate crisis. These climate-damaging flights have already been successfully prevented in the past. I demand a renewed exemption from the responsible EU Commissioner: "Mrs. Vălean, you've banned this before - do it again - stop the empty flights!"#DoitAgainAdina

The problem (if you understand German, see my TikTok-Video here)

The number of aircraft that can take off per airport and per day is limited and divided into takeoff and landing slots by the hour. At BER in Berlin, for example, this is a maximum of 78 slots per hour (source: RBB). In Germany, these takeoff and landing slots are allocated by Flughafenkoordination Deutschland (FLUKO), a federal government company. Once an airline has obtained a slot, it has so-called "grandfather rights" to it and can claim them again and again every summer and winter. The slots remain occupied.

In order to avoid a permanent monopoly here, to ensure that airlines can only use their slots as they see fit once they have them, and to ensure that airports remain reasonably utilized, a corresponding EU regulation was created.

This states that an airline must use at least 80 percent of its slots to retain existing grandfather rights. (source: EU)

It is true that according to the directive, the size of the aircraft using the slot is not decisive. However, airlines must plan so long term that only empirical values, not actual booking figures, can be used when planning the use of the machines. In practice, this means that if a flight is not booked or only barely booked, it usually takes off anyway in order to use the slot and thus ensure its continued existence.

This regulation alone may seem nonsensical under normal circumstances, but it represents only the tip of the iceberg.

Due to the consequences of the Corona pandemic and especially due to the many travel restrictions that go hand in hand with it, it is to be expected that also in this (pandemic) year only a fraction of the air travels will be booked and started. (source: German Air Transport Association)

Admittedly, the EU Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, already lowered the minimum load factor percentage in the past two flight schedules to as much as 25 percent in the meantime (so-called slot waiver). In the current winter timetable, however, this has already been raised to 50 percent again - and even to 64 percent for the upcoming summer timetable (source: Tagesschau).

The current status (50 percent minimum capacity utilization) in turn led to the Lufthansa Group, on the one hand, being able to cancel 33,000 flights throughout Germany in the winter flight schedule, but also, on the other hand, announcing that it would be taking off 18,000 empty or almost empty aircraft from January onwards in order to meet the necessary slot utilization (source: Hessenschau).

Assuming an average flight distance of 1300 km (approx. Düsseldorf-Mallorca), these 18,000 empty flights would correspond to CO2 emissions of 1.5 million tons. That is as much as the entire German traffic causes in four days. Damage that must be prevented at all costs! (source: Bild.de)

The absurd remains, to avert this scenario it only needs the action of the responsible commissioner (Adina Vălean) and the same decisions as they have already been adopted on the past flight plans (sources: BDL and European Commission Representation in Germany).

We demand: #DoItAgainAdina :)

Considering the facts, there is actually only one reasonable solution to the problem: the renewed, temporary, reduction of the minimum utilization of slots to a level that does not provoke empty flights. A new exemption to avoid unnecessary, underutilized flights.

Accordingly, we ask the EU Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, to take action and to decide with the European Council and Parliament on a temporary reduction of the minimum utilization (slot waiver)! In this way, a large number of pointless flights could be avoided.

With this petition we address: first of all, the EU Commissioner for Transport, Ms. Adina Vălean and her entire Commission. Furthermore, all German (and European) politicians who can directly or indirectly influence this situation (even if only by verbal expression or support of this petition).

Thank you, for every signature and sharing this petition!

#DoItAgainAdina

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