In the last few weeks, Lufthansa has been carrying out more positioning flights. These are colloquially called "ghost flights" due to the fact that there are no passengers on board. In the period from June 1 to July 18, 2022 alone, 598 empty flights are said to have been carried out.
This number comes from a query response from the Hessian Ministry of Economic Affairs. The AfD party had made a corresponding request to the state government in the state parliament. Lufthansa believes that the positioning flights are necessary to bring stability to the flight plan.
However, there were repeated strange circumstances. For example, the passengers on a flight from Frankfurt to Berlin were left without any care and the machine then flew empty to the capital and back to the home base with passengers. The Lufthansa media office was initially a little confused about the flight in question, but was then able to provide clarification. The Italian sister company also went to Innsbruck in Austria, for example repeated empty flights.