For two months, Lufthansa Group has been charging substantial refund fees even on its flexible tickets, a move that many travel industry professionals and business travelers said made the term “flexible” meaningless.
The possible exodus of passengers to other airlines ultimately forced Lufthansa to reverse this policy. The airline group has now decided to remove most of those fees once again.
Since April 7, 2026, Lufthansa and several airlines within the group—including Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Discover Airlines—had imposed refund charges on Flex fares across selected long-haul routes. These tickets had traditionally been marketed as fully refundable and designed for travelers whose plans might change.
The fees were significant:
- Economy Flex: €400 refund fee
- Premium Economy Flex: €700 refund fee
- Business Class Flex: €1,000 refund fee
- First Class Flex: €1,500 refund fee
The policy mainly affected flights between Europe and parts of Asia-Pacific, as well as routes to South Africa, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
The change sparked criticism from travel managers, corporate clients and frequent flyers, who argued that charging cancellation penalties on so-called “Flex” tickets undermined the very purpose of the fare category. The German Business Travel Association, the Verband Deutsches Reisemanagement (VDR), described the measure as a serious breach of trust between the airline and the corporate travel sector.
Lufthansa in a twisted, hard-to-believe communication exercise officially explains that “with the stabilization of operational conditions, most fares will once again offer the usual flexibility after it had been temporarily modified in Spring 2026 due to exceptional circumstances.
