The race for slots at various airports worldwide is one of the problems that airlines face. However, Ryanair says it has a solution, for the 18,000 “ghost flights” that Lufthansa said it had to undertake.

After Lufthansa claimed that it carried out 18,000 “unnecessary” flights to preserve slots at airports around the world, the Lufthansa Group's CEO became especially critical of European Union regulations, as this situation “damages climate and is exactly the opposite of what the European Commission wants to achieve”, and now Ryanair is now proposing to solve this problem for the German airline.

Calling on the European Commission to ignore Lufthansa's false claims about the operation of "ghost flights", just so that it can "block" its 'slots' and protect itself from competition from low-cost airlines, the company led by Michael O'Leary is adamant about the solution: “Lufthansa should sell seats at low fares and reward EU consumers, many of whom are responsible for funding €12 billion of state aid that Lufthansa and its subsidiaries in Belgium, Austria and Switzerland have already received from taxpayers during the last two years of the pandemic.”

According to Ryanair, Lufthansa “complains” about the “ghost flights”, “not due to environmental concerns, but so that it can protect its 'slots' (which they are not using), at the same time that eliminates competition and consumer choice.

Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair Group, said in a statement that “if Lufthansa really needs to operate these flights (only to avoid freeing up 'slots' to competing airlines), then they should be required to sell these seats to the public at low rates”.

O'Leary, who has been very critical of the help that the various governments have given to airlines, concluded that Lufthansa “loves to cry crocodile tears over the environment when it does everything in its power to protect their slots''. And it accuses the German group of “blocking competition and limiting choice at major hub airports such as Frankfurt, Brussels Zaventem, Vienna, among others”.

“If Lufthansa doesn't want to operate 'ghost flights' to protect its 'slots', then just sell these seats at low fares and help accelerate the recovery of short- and long-haul air travel to and from Europe,” says O'Leary.

However, Ryanair is again appealing to the European Commission to force Lufthansa and other state-subsidized airlines to release 'slots' they do not wish to use, so that "low-fare 'Ghostbusters' such as Ryanair, among others, can offer choice , competition, and lower fares at hub airports”.