The Supervisory Board of Lufthansa Group has adopted its first-ever "political resolution", calling for a wide range of changes to the European Union's aviation and economic policy. Among other things, the holding is advocating the suspension of the 2021 EU-Qatar open skies agreement due to alleged corruption during its negotiations.

"The competitive distortions that impact EU airlines are manifold and substantial. The EU's air transport agreement with Qatar is a significant burden. In addition to the radically unequal market conditions and social policy disparities, there are serious corruption allegations. It is long overdue that the European Commission suspends the air transport agreement with Qatar," the group said.

While the German holding has long opposed the increased market access of the Gulf carriers to the EU market, the resolution also underlines legal doubts about the process.

Without naming the specifics, the resolution implicitly refers to the so-called Qatargate scandal, which erupted after a series of December 2022 arrests of current and former members of the European Parliament and other officials. They had allegedly been bribed by Qatar, Morocco, and Mauritania to the tune of millions of euros. While the Qatargate allegations do not cover the EU and Qatar Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement signed in 2021, they led the European Parliament to suspend the proceedings of all Qatar-related legislation, including the open skies deal. This has halted its ratification, although the decision had limited practical impact as the deal has already been in force since 2021 on an interim basis.

Later, in March 2023, Politico reported that the then-head of the European Commission's Directorate General of Mobility and Transport, Henrik Holohei, accepted multiple freebies including free business-class flights from Qatar Airways during the period the open skies agreement was being negotiated. Holohei resigned in April 2023.

"It is incomprehensible that [the suspension of the agreement] has not yet occurred, nor have European public prosecutors been involved yet. The already known, and for months unchallenged, allegations of corruption are serious and can no longer be ignored," Lufthansa said.

Addressing both the newly appointed European Commission and the incoming German government, the Lufthansa parent asked for measures to address the market imbalance between European and Asian carriers stemming from the fact that the latter can overfly Russia.

"Chinese airlines, for example, fly over Russia at high frequency and are unilaterally expanding their connections to Europe. It should also be emphasised that particularly airlines from Turkey have significantly increased their capacities to Russia since the outbreak of the war - while maintaining extensive services to the EU. This results in further substantial competitive distortions at the expense of the EU airline industry," it said.

The board also called for reducing the bureaucratic burden in the EU and reevaluating the bloc's climate policy to take into account the economic impact of the proposed changes.

"Obviously, the EU Green Deal is not a role model for other world regions. This is because it does not sufficiently consider economic interests. The aim should be to make 'competition neutrality' a key criterion in the overdue revision of this package of measures. Legislation that primarily only affects EU companies should be quickly revised or subject to a moratorium until further notice," it said.

In separate Lufthansa-related news, the German carrier has said it will shut its tour operator Lufthansa Holidays. The brand is operated by travel firm HLX Touristik. Lufthansa will focus exclusively on the Eurowings Holidays travel package platform as of January 1, 2025.