It is an air connection which allowed Breton passengers to reach one of the largest airports in Europe and to have access to more than 240 destinations around the world. At the end of October 2024, the airline Lufthansa quietly ended the Rennes-Frankfurt route which it had been operating since 2021 with five flights per week.
This decision follows “changes in the operating environment since the pandemic and the massive and simultaneous increase in government charges for flights to and from Germany, and more recently the significant increase in the tax on air traffic,” specifies the German company to Telegram. Lufthansa claims to have “made several efforts to make this connection profitable”… without success.
Traffic drop
Contacted, the management of Rennes airport indicates “to pursue its objective of ensuring the territory’s air connectivity as best as possible and meeting the evolving needs of travelers and local businesses”.
This departure will not help the affairs of the structure operated jointly by the CCI Ille-et-Vilaine and Vinci Airports which is facing a worrying drop in attendance. With just under 600,000 passengers in 2023, Rennes airport recorded a drop in traffic of 7.5% compared to the previous year.
Lacking international destinations
Caught in competition from Nantes and now also from Brest – which recently welcomed a Volotea base, Rennes airport is having real difficulty attracting airlines to its tarmac.
The proof is: its catalog of international destinations has melted like snow in the sun in just a few years. Before Lufthansa a few weeks ago, the company EasyJet had already ended its connections between Rennes and the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto in 2023 for economic reasons.
Internationally, there remains today only the direct connection to London, operated by easyJet, the connection to Amsterdam, operated by KLM, and that to Marrakech, operated by Transavia, which will end in March. The only good news on the board: the arrival of a new connection to Manchester from June 25. It will operate two flights per week between Brittany and the north of England.
“We are in discussions with other companies to strengthen the offer of destinations from Rennes and ensure coverage of European hubs, essential for regional mobility,” nevertheless adds the airport management, which wants to be reassuring.
