Lufthansa canceled 20,000 flights between May and October to save fuel, in one of the biggest cutbacks by global airlines as jet fuel prices doubled after the Iran war, writes the FT. The German carrier has canceled around 120 flights a day since Monday and said it will eliminate unprofitable routes from Munich and Frankfurt until the end of the summer season, which ends in mid-October. «In total, 20,000 short-haul flights will be removed from the schedule by October, equivalent to around 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the conflict in Iran,» Lufthansa said on Tuesday. The exact plan for the summer months will be published «at the end of April or the beginning of May» and will include «optimizations of the short-haul flight offer for the entire summer season, thus ensuring the stability of the flight schedule for this period», the company added. The flight cuts were confirmed as Europe's transport ministers met on Tuesday to discuss plans to avert a possible shortage of jet fuel in the region after the International Energy Agency warned that Europe had less than six weeks of reserves left. The European Union is looking into whether it could obtain an alternative type of jet fuel from the US that is not commonly used in Europe and could allow airlines to load larger amounts of fuel from outside the region, European Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said. It could also relax some requirements on the use of take-off slots at airports, aimed at preventing airlines from under-utilizing available capacity. The European Commission will announce plans on Wednesday for better monitoring of jet fuel stocks and, possibly, for their distribution among member states. «If this crisis continues, we are ready to step in and offer more flexibility to airlines,» Tzitzikostas said on Tuesday. Airlines around the world have cut flights or raised prices to cope with sharp increases in fuel costs, which have exploded since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Delta Air Lines said this month it would try to recoup $1 billion in costs by cutting unprofitable routes, representing about 3.5 percent of its total network. Like other US airlines, Delta does not hedge its risk of rising fuel prices and has thus been more exposed to global price increases than its European counterparts. Asian carriers including Cathay Pacific, AirAsia X and Air New Zealand have cut routes to save fuel, while dozens of airlines around the world have introduced fuel surcharges or raised ticket prices to offset rising costs. Even European carriers that have hedged their fuel price risk have been affected. EasyJet warned last week that it would make bigger-than-expected losses in the winter months due to fuel costs, while Virgin Atlantic said it would struggle to return to profit this year despite price increases.