Lufthansa Group cancels flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut

The Lufthansa Group has cancelled all passenger and cargo flights to and from Tel Aviv until August 8th with immediate effect. A spokesperson for the German airline announced this and justified the decision with the current developments in the region. Flights to Beirut have also been cancelled until August 12th.

The night before, Lufthansa had already cancelled a connecting flight from Cyprus to Tel Aviv for safety reasons. The Airbus A321 aircraft had landed in Larnaka from Munich as planned and then flown on to Israel. However, due to the temporary closure of Iranian airspace, the connecting flight was cancelled.

The security situation in the Middle East has worsened further after Iran blamed Israel for attacks in Tehran and threatened retaliation. As a result, 23 of the 190 passengers affected decided not to return to Munich and to stay in Cyprus. Lufthansa recently introduced a stopover on the island to avoid crew spending the night in the tension zone. Another flight operated by Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines had to be diverted to Sofia.