Lufthansa Group Adds Crew-Change Stops to Three Israel Flights

Lufthansa Group announced on Thursday evening, November 5, that its flight crews would not stay overnight in Israel through November 30. The operating change will add intermediate crew-change stops to three morning departures from Ben Gurion Airport. The group has not announced a blanket suspension of its flights to Israel. The affected services are Lufthansa flight LH691 to Frankfurt, Lufthansa flight LH683 to Munich and SWISS flight LX257 to Zurich. Each will stop in Athens or Larnaca so that a replacement crew can take over. The additional stops are expected to last about one hour, extending the journey on those departures. The restriction on overnight stays applies across the group, including Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. Other group services are expected to continue without the extra intermediate stops. The group did not explicitly identify Iran as the reason for the measure. Schedules may still change, and individual flights could be delayed or cancelled. Affected passengers will receive direct notifications, while revised flight details will be entered into booking systems. The new arrangements allow those departures to operate with crew changes outside Israel during the period covered by the overnight restriction.