Political Audit: Lufthansa

Target: Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa Group; incl. SWISS, Austrian, Brussels, Eurowings, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik) Domain: Political (Political) Date: June 2026 Scope: Lufthansa Group’s own political and communicative acts re Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian context.

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

Lufthansa Group has not issued any public statement on the Gaza war, the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Palestinian civilian casualties, or the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.¹ Searches of the Lufthansa Group newsroom and press archive return no press release, CEO statement, or open letter addressing the conflict in political or humanitarian terms; all official communications relating to Israel after October 2023 are framed exclusively in operational and safety language.²

By contrast, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Lufthansa promptly suspended flights to Kyiv, Odessa, and ultimately all Ukrainian and Russian destinations for an unlimited period.³ CEO Carsten Spohr addressed the Ukraine situation operationally at Lufthansa’s 2022 Annual General Meeting.⁴ Lufthansa Group also joined Air France-KLM in formally lobbying the European Union to ban Russian airlines from transiting EU airspace - a proactive political step with no Israeli-Palestinian analogue on record.⁵

No public evidence identified of any Lufthansa Group statement condemning or addressing Israeli military operations in Gaza, the displacement of Palestinian civilians, or Palestinian human rights.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

Lufthansa Group (including SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, and Brussels Airlines) suspended scheduled flights to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) on 9 October 2023, citing safety as the paramount consideration.⁶ The Group partially resumed TLV flights on 8 January 2024 at approximately 30% of normal capacity, suspended again during the April 2024 Iran-Israel escalation, extended suspensions through December 2024, and announced full gradual resumption from 1 February 2025.²⁷⁸⁹ At no point did Lufthansa Group characterise the suspensions as a political or solidarity measure; the framing was consistently aviation safety assessment.

No public evidence identified of Lufthansa Group operating services to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, or to any other occupied or contested Palestinian territory.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

The May 2022 Frankfurt Incident and US DOT Fine - central Political governance event. On 4 May 2022, Lufthansa flight LH 1334 was scheduled to operate from Frankfurt to Budapest as a connecting service for passengers who had arrived from New York JFK.¹⁰ During the inbound sector, some passengers allegedly refused crew instructions to wear masks (then required by German law). Rather than acting against specific non-compliant individuals, Lufthansa ground staff at Frankfurt identified all visibly Jewish passengers - recognised by kippot, payot, or Jewish-sounding surnames - and collectively barred the entire group from boarding the connecting flight.¹⁰ Approximately 128 of 131 affected passengers had no individual complaint recorded against them; many did not know one another.¹¹ The passengers were travelling to Budapest for an annual memorial event for an Orthodox rabbi.¹⁰

Following the incident, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr apologised personally in a video conference on 12 May 2022 with Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal of Berlin, stating: “Antisemitism has no place at Lufthansa. The actions last Wednesday should not have happened like this and must now be fully clarified.”¹² Spohr acknowledged that a Lufthansa employee had referred to “punishing all Jews on the flight for the sins of the few,” called that language unacceptable, and confirmed that implicated employees had been suspended.¹² An initial corporate press statement had used generic regret language without naming antisemitism, and the more substantive Spohr engagement followed only after significant public criticism.¹³ The airline’s internal investigation, reported in a July 2022 letter from Lufthansa Airlines CEO Jens Ritter, concluded that some staff had been “insensitive and unprofessional” but found no evidence of institutional antisemitism.¹⁴

On 15 October 2024, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) issued Consent Order 2024-10-7, imposing a $4 million civil penalty on Deutsche Lufthansa AG for violating US prohibitions on air-transportation discrimination and unfair practices - the largest penalty ever issued by the agency against any airline for civil-rights violations.¹⁵¹⁶ Under the consent order, Lufthansa agreed to pay $2 million to the US Treasury, with a further $2 million credited for a prior civil settlement with affected passengers.¹⁷ Lufthansa did not admit to any violations under the consent order, denied that any employees had discriminated, and disputed (on jurisdictional grounds) that US law applied to events in Germany.¹⁸

Post-incident governance reforms: In July 2022, Lufthansa Airlines CEO Jens Ritter announced a new senior management position dedicated to “the prevention of discrimination and antisemitism.”¹⁴ On 15 September 2022, Lufthansa Group adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, becoming the first airline group globally to do so, at a ceremony featuring US Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt and Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Jewish Life Felix Klein.¹⁹ On 19 September 2022, Lufthansa Group and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) announced a joint initiative to combat global antisemitism, with AJC training for Lufthansa employees in Munich and Frankfurt.²⁰ The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations publicly acknowledged the IHRA adoption.²¹ Despite these reforms, Lufthansa’s refusal to admit discrimination in the DOT consent order and its internal finding of no institutional fault were noted critically in Jewish community reporting.²²

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

Lufthansa was founded in 1926 and re-established in 1953 as the flag carrier of West Germany; it was privatised in 1997.²³ The German federal government took a 20% equity stake as part of a €9 billion COVID-19 bailout approved by shareholders in June 2020, later including a blocking-minority option.²⁴ Lufthansa repaid the aid earlier than expected, and the German state subsequently exited its stake.²⁵ No evidence was found linking this state-ownership relationship to any German government position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

No public evidence identified of Lufthansa holding Israeli state branding partnerships, co-marketing with Israeli government tourism bodies, or co-branding agreements with Israeli state entities.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

Lufthansa Cargo: military cargo to Israel. Lufthansa Cargo had been transporting military and security-related goods to and from Israel. On approximately 7 December 2025 - coinciding with the official visit of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to Israel - Lufthansa Cargo issued a notice halting “all military and security-related shipments to and from Israel until further notice,” stating that “due to the UK Export Control Order and relevant sanctions, the transport of military equipment and components to and from Tel Aviv is currently not possible for Lufthansa Cargo, independent of the routing.”²⁶ The suspension was described as regulatory compliance rather than a political or ethical decision.²⁶ Lufthansa Cargo subsequently resumed such shipments, confirming to Declassified UK around 17 December 2025 that a permit-based process was available to obtain necessary approvals under UK export controls.²⁷

Lufthansa Technik: Elbit Systems / ELNET. Lufthansa Technik (the Group’s MRO subsidiary) signed a memorandum of understanding with Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in January 2024 for collaboration on military unmanned aerial vehicles, specifically an offer to the German Navy for up to eight Hermes 900 Starliner drones (Elbit manufacturing; Lufthansa Technik maintenance/crew training); as of May 2024 no formal contract had been signed.²⁸²⁹ On 10 July 2025, Lufthansa Technik was a co-sponsor of the launch event for ELNET’s Security and Defence Initiative (ESDI) in Germany, alongside Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Renk, Rohde & Schwarz, and others; ELNET (European Leadership Network) is a pro-Israel advocacy organisation that works to deepen EU-Israel strategic ties, and keynote speakers included the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and a former Chief of the Israeli Air Force.³⁰

Russia/EU lobby contrast: In 2022, Lufthansa Group joined Air France-KLM in petitioning the EU to ban Russian airlines from transiting EU airspace - an active advocacy step with no parallel action on record regarding Israel/Gaza.⁵

No public evidence identified of Lufthansa Group directly financing Israeli political parties, settlements, or Israeli state bodies, or of lobbying the EU or German government for positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

Lufthansa Group’s primary mission is commercial aviation - passenger carriage, cargo logistics, aircraft maintenance, and catering. Its core entities are Deutsche Lufthansa AG (parent), Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Lufthansa Cargo, and Lufthansa Technik (MRO, with a dedicated defence-sector division).³¹ Lufthansa Technik’s defence division explicitly markets to military customers globally, including through the Elbit Systems collaboration noted above, positioning a Lufthansa subsidiary within the Israeli defence-industrial supply chain.²⁸ No public evidence identified that the group’s stated corporate mission includes any political advocacy on Israeli-Palestinian matters.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Carsten Spohr (Group CEO): Spohr personally apologised to Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal on 12 May 2022 for the Frankfurt incident, describing the conduct as unacceptable and confirming employee suspensions.¹² No public statement by Spohr on Gaza, Palestinian civilians, or the October 7 attack and its aftermath was found in the public record.¹

Jens Ritter (CEO, Lufthansa Airlines): Signed the July 2022 letter to the Conference of Presidents that found no evidence of institutional antisemitism while acknowledging staff unprofessionalism, and pledged to create a senior antisemitism-prevention management role.¹⁴

Christina Foerster (Executive Board Member, Lufthansa Group): Made the IHRA adoption statement on 15 September 2022: “there is no room for antisemitism, discrimination and racism of any kind in society, nor in the Lufthansa Group.”¹⁹

No public evidence identified of any Lufthansa Group board member or named executive making public statements on Israeli military conduct in Gaza, Palestinian rights, or the Israeli-Palestinian political settlement.

End Notes