Passengers travelling with Lufthansa will now pay more, as the German airline passes on the costs of implementing new EU climate protection regulations.

EU Lufthansa passengers will pay more from June 26

To pass on the cost of implementing EU climate regulations, Lufthansa will now charge its passengers between one and 72 euros more per flight, starting on June 26, 2024. The change will apply to all members of the Lufthansa Group, including SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings and Brussels Airlines among others.

The new surcharges will apply to flights departing from January 1, 2025, from all EU member states, Norway, the UK and Switzerland.

Air passengers travelling within Germany and out of German airports have already seen ticket price hikes across all airlines this year. In May, changes to aviation tax increased a charge on passenger tickets from 12,73 euros to 15,53 euros. For trips further afield, more than 6.000 kilometres, tickets are now taxed at 70,83 rather than 58,06 euros per head.

More night trains hit the tracks in Germany

While air travel prices skyrocket, long-distance travel is seeing changes on the ground. Deutsche Bahn’s 2023 and 2024 timetable updates saw the national rail company launch more night trains, including a service connecting Hamburg and Zurich, Prague and Berlin and a new Austrian Nightjet linking Berlin and Paris.

Another route connecting Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Vienna is set to start running in 2025. In the meantime, concerns continue over Deutsche Bahn’s failure to ramp up track network renovations and address worsening delays, shortcomings that are being noticed further afield as millions of international fans travel in and out of Germany for Euro 2024.

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