Germany news: Lufthansa scraps 20,000 flights

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What you need to know

• German airline Lufthansa to scrap 20,000 short-haul flights
• New Terminal 3 opens at Frankfurt International Airport
• Defense Minister Pistorius lays out future Bundeswehr plans
• Football: Bayer Leverkusen host Bayern Munich in cup semi-final

Welcome to DW's coverage of what Germany is talking about on Wednesday, April 22, 2026.

Skip next section Frankfurt Airport: New Terminal 3 opens04/22/2026April 22, 2026

Frankfurt Airport: New Terminal 3 opens

The brand new Terminal 3 at Frankfurt International Airport was officially opened on Wednesday — with only a slight delay and only marginally over-budget.

The new passenger terminal at Germany's largest airport is designed to handle around 19 million passengers per year with the potential to expand to 25 million, which would make it bigger on its own than Germany's fourth-largest airport ofDüsseldorf (24 million passengers).

When work began 10 years ago, Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport initially budgeted for costs of between €2.5 million to €3 million ($3 million to $3.5 million) which eventually ended up at around €4 million. The new terminal was expected to open in 2022, but construction was delayed largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, compared to the notorious delays and soaring costs which turned the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport into a national running joke in Germany throughout the 2010s, Frankfurt's new Terminal 3 has been completed comparatively on-time and on-budget.

Frankfurt Airport's Terminal 3 faces crucial stress test

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The reasons for the largely smooth operation lie in a compartmentalized building process consisting of more than 300 individual construction projects and a so-called design freeze overseen by experienced managers, according to Harald Rohr, chief executive of Fraport's expansion project.

Rohr himself had already overseen the expansion of Frankfurt's Terminal 2, the Frankfurt Airport Train Station building known as "The Squaire," and the airport's freight terminal.

Fellow project CEO Stephanie Pudwitz had previously worked on several construction projects in Berlin's diplomatic quarter as well as the new European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt.

Criticism of the new terminal came from groups such as the IKUL Initiative for climate and environment protection, which slammed the project as a "symbol of mismanagement, environmental destruction and megalomania."

Regular operations at the new Terminal 3 are expected to begin on Thursday.

https://p.dw.com/p/5CdnISkip next section Lufthansa to scrap 20,000 flights between now and October04/22/2026April 22, 2026

Lufthansa to scrap 20,000 flights between now and October

After announcing the discontinuation of its CityLine subsidiary last week, German flagship airline Lufthansa confirmed on Wednesday that the move would lead to the scrapping of 20,000 flights between now and October.

"Uneconomical" short-haul routes which have been "at least temporarily" discontinued include connections from Lufthansa's Frankfurt hub to Bydgoszcz and Rzeszow in Poland and Stavanger in Norway.

Ten further connections to Heringsdorf and Stuttgart (Germany), Gdansk and Wroclaw (Poland), Cork (Ireland), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Rijeka (Croatia), Sibiu (Romania), Trondheim (Norway) and Tivat (Montenegro) will be rerouted via other Lufthansa hubs which, in addition to Frankfurt, include Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Brussels and Rome.

Lufthansa said it would provide further details about its "flight optimization plan" at the end of April but that the cancelations so far would save more than 40,000 tons of kerosene, the price of which has doubled since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The airline insisted that it expected "stable fuel provisions" for its summer holiday flight plans.

https://p.dw.com/p/5CdHXSkip next section Defense Minister presents German military strategy 04/22/2026April 22, 2026

Defense Minister presents German military strategy

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Wednesday presented his strategy for the future development of Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr.

The senior Social Democrat (SPD) said Germany was aiming to develop "the strongest conventional army in Europe" and named Russia as a chief threat.

"With its rearmament, [Russia] is preparing for a military confrontation with NATO and sees the use of military force as a legitimate instrument to enforce its interests," Pistorius said in a policy document.

He said Moscow was increasingly using "hybrid means" of waging war, such as espionage, sabotage, cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns.

"In the short term, we are increasing our capabilities in defense and resilience," said Pistorius. "In the medium term, we are aiming for a significant overall increase in our capabilities and, in the longer term, we will establish technological superiority."

Startups are revolutionizing drone technology

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https://p.dw.com/p/5Cd4BSkip next section Welcome to our coverage04/22/2026April 22, 2026

Welcome to our coverage

Matt Ford | Sean Sinico Editor

Guten Morgen! Welcome to our coverage of what Germany is talking about on Wednesday, April 22.

After axing its CityLine subsidiary, German flagship airline Lufthansa has announced it is scrapping 20,000 flights, at least partly due to soaring fuel prices amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, however, Frankfurt International Airport is set to officially open its new Terminal 3, through which around 19 million passengers per year are expected to pass.

And in Berlin, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has laid out his strategy for the future of Germany's armed forces.

Want to know what was going on in Germany on Tuesday? You can catch up here.

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