In the current year, the airlines in the Lufthansa Group have so far reimbursed around 2.7 billion euros to a total of 6.3 million customers (as of 09.09.2020). In arithmetical terms, around 1800 refunds per hour were paid out last week. The justified claims received by Lufthansa in Germany by the end of June have already been settled. Only more complex cases requiring more intensive processing are still outstanding. These, too, will be completed in the near future.
The number of open ticket refunds fell to one million transactions. It should be noted that new reimbursement claims are constantly arising because flights have to be cancelled or guests cancel due to travel warnings. Lufthansa currently receives three times as many applications as before the pandemic. Therefore, the number of open refund claims will continue to develop dynamically, decrease further in the coming weeks, but will never reach zero.
Lufthansa Group Airlines is working continuously and intensively to further speed up the processing. To this end, they have initiated many different measures. For example, the capacity of employees in the customer centers has been tripled, and in travel agency sales it has even quadrupled. Numerous employees from other departments have been activated to provide support and have been released from short-time working in return.
Furthermore, customers can flexibly adjust their travel plans. All fares of Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines can be rebooked as often as desired without incurring charges. This applies worldwide to new bookings on short, medium and long-haul routes.
| Lufthansa Group Airlines | ||
| Amount of refunds paid | in Mio. EUR | 2,700 |
| Number of refunded tickets | in Mio | 6.3 |
| Total number of pending refund requests (including new requests) | in Mio. | 1.0 |
