TheChek News Flow

Bezos-founded companies push ahead in satellite connections and rocket launches; Musk’s SpaceX has dominated both businesses for years

Jeff Bezos earlier this year signed into X to post a photo of a tortoise.

No explanation. Space industry nerds, though, immediately read between the lines, seeing the Amazon.com AMZN 3.81%increase; green up pointing triangle founder as the steadier, if slower, competitor in a two-person race to the stars.

The hare? That would be Elon Musk, chief executive and founder of SpaceX, which for years has ranged far ahead of Bezos’ companies’ efforts in building rockets, designing satellites and extending humans’ reach into space.

This week Bezos looks to forge ahead. Amazon struck an $11 billion deal to boost its nascent satellite internet business, buying satellite operator Globalstar and inking a deal with Apple. Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin is meanwhile gearing up for the next launch of its massive New Glenn rocket, set to carry a commercial payload for the first time.

And when it comes to NASA’s next Artemis missions, Blue Origin sees an opening to catch or surpass SpaceX. Blue Origin has planned to this year launch a cargo vehicle to the lunar surface, a lander that would inform the company’s designs for quickly getting astronauts back to the surface of the moon.

Taking off

No question, SpaceX is far ahead of Blue Origin in building and launching rockets. Leaning on its workhorse Falcon 9 rockets, SpaceX launches more often than its competitors in the U.S. and elsewhere, giving it a dominant position in launch services that no rival has matched.

The approach at Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000, has been much more methodical. While SpaceX spent years launching rockets, having them blow up, and launching again to learn and perfect its systems, Blue Origin dedicated itself to developing a rocket, New Glenn, that could work right from its first launch.

Last year New Glenn at last took flight—and mostly worked. The rocket’s upper stage made it to orbit, achieving the flight’s main goal, though the booster wasn’t recaptured for reuse. A launch in November made progress, deploying two Mars-bound satellites for NASA and catching the booster.

New Glenn could launch again as soon as Friday, a flight set to carry a satellite developed by Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which would help Blue Origin chip away at a yearslong backlog of orders. Blue Origin had a hardware explosion last week at a Florida test facility, though the company said it didn’t affect its launch plans.

SpaceX, founded in 2002, has been pushing ahead with its own next-generation rocket, the giant Starship, which Musk has put at the center of the company’s deeper-space aspirations. Test launches last year included blowups and successes, and SpaceX is gearing up to launch a new version in May, after pushing back the test several times.

Satellites in the sky

SpaceX’s regular Falcon 9 launches have helped the company blanket the sky with roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites, enabling broadband connections even in remote and war-torn regions. Thousands more could go up in the years ahead, and SpaceX is developing a network of satellites designed to provide cellphone connections.

On Tuesday Amazon struck a roughly $11 billion deal to buy satellite operator Globalstar, which would give the company a leg up in cellphone-to-satellite connections. Globalstar operates satellites of its own, providing links that allow users of Apple’s iPhone to text, call emergency assistance and seek roadside help in areas not covered by traditional cell service.

Amazon, where Bezos serves as executive chairman after handing off the CEO reins to Andy Jassy in 2021, is in the early innings of developing a more than 7,000-satellite network for broadband. While SpaceX has a big lead in household subscribers and enterprise clients, Amazon expects its satellite business, called Leo, to be integrated with its powerful cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services.

The deal “highlights the value of spectrum as a scarce resource, be it terrestrial or satellite,” said Mike Crawford, an analyst at B. Riley Securities.

Blue Origin separately plans to build a 5,400-satellite constellation called TeraWave, geared toward businesses, data centers and government customers.

Moonshots

NASA’s successful Artemis II mission this month amped up anticipation for a planned lunar landing in 2028. The pressure is on SpaceX and Blue Origin to make it happen, with each company developing landers for NASA that would be used on upcoming Artemis flights.

Blue Origin recently shifted resources to its lunar efforts, pausing its suborbital space tourism business to better focus on the moon. SpaceX, after years of looking to Mars, has reallocated staff and energy to the moon as well.

In mid-2027, NASA plans to test one or both of the companies’ landers. Artemis III will launch a crew into low Earth orbit and evaluate the rendezvous and docking capabilities between the agency’s Orion spacecraft and SpaceX or Blue Origin’s landers—or both of those vehicles.

Sending data centers to space

SpaceX and Blue Origin see a big future for data centers in orbit, hoping to tap in to solar power to satisfy the facilities’ immense power needs.

The idea is still largely untested, but the companies are racing ahead, with SpaceX planning to use upgraded Starlink satellites to handle AI computing. Musk’s company has sought regulatory permission to send up to one million data center satellites into space, while Blue Origin last month filed for permission to deploy nearly 52,000 satellites bearing AI computing payloads.

Musk is thinking further out. On X, he has mused about establishing a lunar base that could construct AI satellites and propel them into space.

Health agency faces leadership turmoil and controversy over vaccine guidance

Erica Schwartz is expected to be selected by the Trump administration to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC has been without a permanent director since Susan Monarez’s ouster in August in the midst of disagreement on vaccine policy.

The CDC nominee’s stance on vaccines will play an important role in securing Senate confirmation.

Erica Schwartz is expected to be selected by the Trump administration to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pending approval from President Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move, which isn’t final, follows months of upheaval at the health agency and uncertainty over its direction and credibility.

Schwartz was deputy surgeon general, a nonpolitical role for civil servants, during the first Trump administration. A physician, she spent more than two decades in uniform, beginning in the U.S. Navy before joining the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the U.S. Coast Guard. During her years in the Coast Guard, she became rear admiral and served as the branch’s chief medical officer, among other roles.

The White House has sought to rein in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccine policy, and the CDC nominee’s stance on vaccines will play an important role in securing Senate confirmation. Some Republican senators sharply criticized Kennedy for firing Susan Monarez as CDC director, largely owing to disagreements on vaccine policy. Kennedy has rejected recommendations for Covid-19 and some childhood vaccines, although some of those decisions are now held up in court.

The White House was seeking a nominee who would minimize controversy, people familiar with the matter said.

Kennedy and Chris Klomp, who has been installed at HHS as Kennedy’s No. 2, interviewed candidates and recommended Schwartz to the president, a person familiar with the matter said.

The CDC has been without a permanent director since Monarez’s ouster this past August and in the midst of high turnover across federal health agencies. Jay Bhattacharya has been leading the CDC since February, continuing in his role as director of the National Institutes of Health.

“When I was a military physician, my job was all about readiness. It was all about public health prevention, vaccines, early detection,” Schwartz said in a recent video posted to Instagram to mark National Public Health Week. “If we get that right, we change lives before illness ever begins.”

Schwartz earned her medical degree from the Brown University medical school and is board-certified in preventive medicine. She holds a master’s degree in public health and a law degree.

Federal health officials, including Kennedy, were interviewing candidates in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Other candidates considered included Ernie Fletcher, the former governor of Kentucky and a family-practice physician; Joseph Marine, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins who has criticized the CDC’s handling of the pandemic; and Daniel Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer and a proponent of vaccines.

If confirmed, Schwartz would inherit an agency plagued by low morale. Roughly 80% of CDC center directors have resigned or been forced out since the Trump administration took office, according to the CDC Data Project, an independent tracker monitoring reductions in the agency’s funding and personnel.

At least a dozen political appointees at the agency—a larger number than in previous administrations—wield significant power over the CDC’s direction and messaging, according to current employees. Many appointees don’t have backgrounds in public health, and a handful are antivaccine activists who have played a role in paring back the agency’s vaccine recommendations.

Efforts under Kennedy to revise federal vaccine guidelines has been a growing source of frustration among Republicans and some Trump allies, who have warned of potential blowback in November’s midterm elections. Some of Trump’s aides have taken on more of a hands-on role in overseeing Kennedy’s department in the midst of polling showing his vaccine policies are unpopular.

Some at the CDC have characterized Bhattacharya as a stabilizing figure, but other employees said that the culture hasn’t meaningfully changed under Kennedy’s stewardship and that career staff members often remain sidelined or caught off guard by major decisions.

During an internal all-staff meeting recently, Bhattacharya referred to Senate confirmation as “a long painful process” while signaling he would remain in charge of the agency until a new leader is confirmed. Much of Bhattacharya’s remarks, a recording of which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal, sought to boost morale while acknowledging the frustrations of a battered CDC workforce.

“I know that it has been such a difficult year for the CDC,” he said before a packed auditorium at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters. “I’ve seen the turmoil that you’ve faced.”

Bhattacharya fielded questions from employees on a range of topics, including his relationship with Kennedy, whom he described as a friend. “The caricature that I have seen in the press of him is unfair,” he said of the health secretary, while adding that he and Kennedy don’t always agree but are able to discuss issues candidly.

The event marked the first meeting CDC employees could ask leaders questions with an open microphone in years, two employees said, and the first all-hands gathering since Monarez’s departure. The audience applauded after Bhattacharya’s comments on reinstating telework options, and the acting director held a meet and greet with employees after the hourlong meeting.

Some employees said Bhattacharya’s comments fell short on acknowledging the role top health officials in the administration have played in restructuring the CDC and scaling back some of its core functions. Bhattacharya promised during the meeting to oppose any future layoffs at the agency and said he is working to reinstate roles focused on chronic disease that had been eliminated.

Last month, the makeup of Kennedy’s handpicked panel of vaccine advisers to the CDC was thrown into question after a federal judge effectively blocked it from convening. The judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ 2025 votes, which included a recommendation to drop guidance that all newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine dose.

Vaccine policy and this group’s authority were at the center of Monarez’s ouster from the CDC. In September testimony before a Senate committee after her firing, Monarez said Kennedy had instructed her to agree to approve all future recommendations from the advisory panel and to fire CDC vaccine-policy officials. She said Kennedy told her to resign if she wasn’t willing to do so. Kennedy has denied her characterization of the events.

For marathoners, sunglasses are the new super-shoes

Wearing edgy performance eyewear for your run is the latest way to peacock on race day

“What are you wearing?” So goes the pre-marathon patter, where nervous runners unite in gossip around race day outfits. Typically, chat used to centre around fluorescent race day sneakers. But this year, many are likely to dissect what’s on their face as well as on their feet. The newest running status symbol is not a super shoe, but rather super sunglasses.

These days, marathons are also fashion shows, and the latest opportunity to peacock is via a futuristic sports lens in bright pink, yellow or even Brat green. Some versions are as obnoxious as a ski goggle, with mirrored lenses in a rainbow gradient, while more refined pairs are found at LA brand District Vision.

Just ask Harry Styles: he wore District Vision’s Junya Racers to run the Tokyo and the Berlin marathons last year. Running’s newfound fashionability has created a typecast outfit I call “runcore”: a slinky tank top (usually black) with black fitted shorts, black or white compression sleeves, a hydration vest, socks to match your shoes plus a pair of super status sunglasses. So prolific is “runcore” that scores of millennials and Gen Zs wear this race day look for their Saturday morning five-kilometre jog.

“Sunglasses are an easy way to inject some of your personality into a running outfit,” says Jenna Litner, a New York-based content creator. Her profile grew last year after she started a series for women on how to style running outfits.

Josh Kerr, the British Olympian track runner, agrees. In March, he wore a pair of ocean blue reflective Oakleys to win the 3,000 metres at the world championships . . . indoors. “Track can be very uniform with the same kits and routines. Sunglasses are a way of standing out,” he says. They also put him in race mode: “It’s like a trigger . . . everything sharpens.”

The global sports eyewear sector was worth $17.4bn in 2024, projected to reach $24.61bn by the end of 2030, according to Grand View Research; independent brands, not Nike or Adidas, appear to be leading the charge — albeit with a nod to an original purveyor of these types of shades: Oakley.

Satisfy began a multiyear collaboration with Oakley in 2023 with a bright pink frameless lens; Soar launched an ultralight lens last year. After runners began snapping up vintage Oakleys, Vladyslav Husakivskyi, a 23-year-old runner in Paris, started @ovvergg, an Oakley “collectors store” for followers who buy via direct message. Oakley itself has also newfound intent. Givenchy alumni Matthew M Williams was hired in March as its creative director; he’ll work alongside the rapper Travis Scott, who was hired by Oakley last June as a chief visionary officer.

“Ten years ago, running was something we did at night because we didn’t want to be seen and you didn’t tell anyone about it,” says Tom Daly, co-founder of District Vision. “Now, your gear is a signal to communicate a lifestyle.” Sunglasses are, he says, runners’ jewellery for their face. Given that sports watches such as Garmin and Coros are quite ugly, “for men, they’re the new watch”.  

District Vision launched the first hyper-technical silhouettes a decade ago, and its handcrafted eyewear for sport resonated, given runners already obsess over product technicality, like shoe stack and carbon plates.

“We were consumers of luxury, eyewear fans, and runners, and we noticed something was missing,” says co-founder Max Vallot. “We began with some “crazy, crazy” sketches. “Our friends and early advisers kept asking us how and where we were going to sell them.” 

Today, its eyewear is stocked at fashion retailers such as Mr Porter and Dover Street Market, alongside independent running stores like Renegade Running in LA, Metta Running House in Mexico City, and Knees Up in London. They’re also sold in optical stores globally and eyewear is 40 per cent of the brand’s sales. 

In luxury fashion, eyewear is an entry-level price point, made and sold on licence. In running, it almost flips the script by generally being the most expensive category. District Vision recently launched its highest-priced silhouettes yet. Costing £550, the Mami and Miho frames took more than two and a half years to develop, then sold out within a day — twice. Smaller and sleeker than the rest of the collection, they’re also very easy to wear with normal clothes. 

Like super shoes, super sunglasses serve a very specific technical function so it’s perhaps easier to justify the splurge. “Runners need protection from the elements; there are flies, branches, sand and stones,” says Nicola Strange, a co-founder of an insights and strategy company who runs ultra-marathons in the trails.

Soar’s Cirrus lens is made from titanium and weigh just 20 grams. District Vision’s lenses offer 100 per cent UVA/B protection; they are also shatterproof, water and oil repellent, and finished with anti-reflective coating. Designed to fit under helmets for cycling, some even come with anti-fog ventilation systems in the nose pad. Represent 247, a brand popular with runners in endurance events such as Hyrox, are made in Italy with rubberised, grip-enhanced frames that, according to the product description, “keep you locked in”.

Super shoes costing £220-£280 wear out after one or two races, but super sunglasses last for ever. Max Manavi-Huber, co-founder of sportswear boutique Supplies Supplies in Vienna, says he’s owned two pairs of District Vision shades for eight-plus years. For people who run six times per week like me, the girl math on a £550 frame suddenly seems favourable.

Are you ready for the restock to drop? On your marks, get set, shop.

Uber commits $10bn to robotaxis in strategy shift

Ride-hailing app races to make up lost ground with equity investments and vehicle order commitments

Uber has committed more than $10bn to buying thousands of autonomous vehicles and taking stakes in their developers, breaking from its asset-light “gig economy” business model to avoid disruption from robotaxis.

The ride-hailing app has aggressively increased its dealmaking over the past year, announcing partnerships with more than a dozen providers, including China’s Baidu and US-based Rivian, as well as plans to launch robotaxi services in at least 15 cities in 2026.

These deals put Uber on track to invest more than $2.5bn in equity stakes and spend over $7.5bn on robotaxi fleets in the next few years, according to FT calculations based on analyst estimates and people familiar with Uber’s deals. The agreements are contingent on its partners hitting certain deployment milestones.

Uber’s investments mark a striking reversal for a company synonymous with the gig economy model that emerged from Silicon Valley more than a decade ago. The group upended the taxi industry by pioneering an asset-light approach that relied on drivers using their own vehicles to ferry passengers.

On Tuesday, electric-vehicle maker Lucid said Uber had expanded a previous deal to invest a total of $500mn in the California-based company and buy at least 35,000 of its cars, likely costing the ride-hailing group at least $2bn.

Walter Piecyk, analyst at LightShed Partners, a venture capital investor, believes Uber’s recent robotaxi spending spree is “step one in a complete narrative change” around its business. “I think they are easing people into the concept” of Uber owning fleets of vehicles, he said.

Uber is seeking to make up lost ground in the robotaxi race after selling its in-house autonomous vehicle arm in 2020 in a $4bn deal as part of a focus on profitability.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, has since committed to spend more than twice that sum with robotaxi providers from Silicon Valley through to Beijing and London. The total exceeds its $9.8bn in free cash flow last year.

“We are putting our capital up in order to guarantee supply [of robotaxis] going forward,” Khosrowshahi told investors in February. “Much of that supply is going to be on profitable economics . . . And we will continue making these kinds of commitments.”

Uber’s shares, down almost 23 per cent in the past six months, largely reflect investors’ concern that the company’s role at the centre of a vast marketplace of drivers will be overtaken by a handful of AV providers. Other factors, including higher fuel costs and concerns about consumer demand, have also weighed on its share price.

“The things that have hurt Uber’s stock are milestones from Waymo [and] Tesla,” Piecyk said. “Uber is trying to address the risk but it’s a balancing [act] — they need to reinvest for growth but don’t want to lose the investors that came in after it got to [profitability].”

The company became profitable in 2023 after accumulating more than $30bn in operating losses.

Uber’s attempt to gain a foothold in the robotaxi industry pits it against three of the world’s most valuable companies — Alphabet, which owns Waymo, Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox — all of which have thrived by cutting out various intermediaries.

Uber’s deals are aimed at positioning it as a funnel through which an assortment of players can reach consumers. Khosrowshahi is also setting the group up to monetise AV data to train AI models and provide services, including insurance.

“The medium-term problem for [Uber] investors is why this industry doesn’t ultimately go direct to consumer,” said Nick Jones, equity research analyst at BNP Paribas.

Khosrowshahi expects Uber to play a prominent role in helping turn autonomous vehicles into a financial instrument. Although Uber has committed to underwrite tens of thousands of robotaxis, it expects fleet management companies, institutional investors and private credit to step in and ultimately help finance the deployment.

“We do think that we will have a very, very healthy financing ecosystem both in terms of equity and debt,” Khosrowshahi previously said. “The whole system is going to financialise, just as you see data centres financialise as well.”

It also has an important ally in Nvidia, the AI chipmaker that is investing heavily in the technology underpinning autonomous vehicles. Nvidia and Uber have co-invested in Wayve and Waabi as part of a wide-ranging partnership.

But BNP’s Jones said investors were mixed on whether they wanted Uber to operate fleets of vehicles. “Can they really go more capital-intensive and pull that back [later] or do they end up becoming a more structurally capital-intensive company?”

As part of its shift, Uber has been at the centre of negotiating partnerships between AV developers and carmakers, according to people familiar with the matter. Last July, it helped Nuro pair up with Lucid on a fleet of robotaxis. Waabi, an AV trucking developer, is working with Uber to finalise a deal with a carmaker to equip 25,000 robotaxis.

Uber faces strong competition in the fast-growing market. While Waymo has partnered with Uber in several secondary markets, including Austin and Atlanta, it plans to go it alone in primary markets such as London as it already has in San Francisco.

Waymo aims to operate 1mn paid weekly rides across 17 cities by the end of this year. It is forecast to account for more than 7 per cent of the overall US rideshare market by 2030, according to JPMorgan.

In San Francisco, Waymo’s market share stood at about 16 per cent in February, according to Yipit, a data analytics group, compared to Uber’s 62 per cent. Across the US cities and regions where it has services, Waymo’s market share is around 7 per cent.

Amazon-owned Zoox, which announced a partnership with Uber last month, would operate its own app in every market where its vehicles are on the road, chief technology officer Jesse Levinson told the FT.

Tesla is operating its own app and Khosrowshahi previously remarked that the electric-car maker’s talks with Uber had fizzled as the company “want[s] to build it alone”.

“Uber’s pitch to robotaxi operators is that it can increase vehicle utilisation beyond what they can achieve on their own,” said Neel Mehta, a partner at G2 capital. “That makes sense. The question is whether the economics are attractive after Uber takes its cut.”

The ride-hailing app has increased its take rate — the margin it generates on each ride — from about 23 per cent at the end of 2020 to 30 per cent at the end of last year as it squeezes more out of people driving on the platform, according to earnings reports. Uber has not disclosed what share of each autonomous trip’s fare it will receive.

Uber said this figure included insurance and that net of these costs and other incentives, its take rate in the US was less than 20 per cent.

Khosrowshahi has cautioned that robotaxis are yet to scale to a level that is material for the company even if robotaxis present a “trillion-dollar opportunity”. “We added 50 times the trips on the Uber platform this last year than the entire AV industry added,” he previously said.

“We’re very confident that we’re going to be the first choice for AV manufacturers and technology companies,” he added.

So you've stolen a Matisse — what do you do next?

The rise of the three-minute heist is an alarming development — but looted paintings remain near-impossible to sell on the open market

Deal will bolster tech group’s efforts to challenge Elon Musk’s Starlink with its own low Earth orbit satellite business

Amazon has agreed an $11.6bn deal to acquire satellite group Globalstar in a major takeover that will bolster its ambitions to challenge Elon Musk’s Starlink with its own rival low Earth orbit satellite business.

The deal, announced on Tuesday, is one of Amazon’s largest-ever acquisitions and will strengthen the Seattle-based group’s efforts to catch up with SpaceX’s lead in the field. The FT previously revealed that the two groups were in talks over a deal.

“By combining Globalstar’s proven expertise and strong foundation with Amazon’s customer-obsession and innovation, customers can expect faster, more reliable service in more places,” said Panos Panay, Amazon’s senior vice-president of devices and services.

Amazon said it would offer either $90 per Globalstar share or 0.32 shares of Amazon stock subject to various other conditions. The deal is expected to close next year.

By acquiring Globalstar, which was founded in 1991, Amazon will also secure immediate rights to radiowave spectrum, opening the door for it to provide direct-to-device (D2D) mobile communications in the future.

The service, which is already provided by Starlink, provides mobile connectivity to users who are outside terrestrial mobile networks.

Globalstar shares surged in recent months on the back of takeover speculation. Its stock was up more than 270 per cent in the past year, with its shares closing on Monday at $73 prior to Amazon’s announcement.

One complicating factor in talks was Apple’s 20 per cent stake in Globalstar. As part of the deal Amazon agreed for its Leo unit to support satellite service for Apple’s iPhone and Watch products including the emergency SOS service.

Amazon has more than 200 satellites in orbit but its deployment is dwarfed by the more than 10,000 active satellites operated by Starlink’s parent SpaceX. Amazon in February was forced to seek a two-year extension to a July deadline from the Federal Communications Commission for the launch of 1,600 satellites. 

Amazon plans to have about 700 satellites in space by the middle of this year but has said that a shortage in launch capacity is hampering the build-out of its service, according to regulatory filings. 

Amazon has signed deals with JetBlue and Delta Air Lines for internet services on flights commencing in 2027 and 2028 respectively. 

Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, told investors in February that Leo was part of a suite of “incremental opportunities” that were being focused on by the $2.2tn ecommerce giant. 

Globalstar reported full-year revenue of $273mn in its latest annual results, a 9 per cent increase from 2024. Income from operations was $7.4mn in 2025, an upswing after a narrow loss in the year prior. 

The deal is one of Amazon’s largest-ever acquisitions, falling short of its $13.7bn takeover of the upmarket grocer Whole Foods in 2017 but larger than its $8.45bn takeover of film studio MGM agreed in 2021.

Travel turmoil caused by industrial action a ‘significant handicap’ as carrier tries to benefit from war

Lufthansa is facing one of the most significant strike disruptions in years, hampering the German airline group’s efforts to capitalise on the disruption affecting Gulf rivals owing to the war in Iran.

The company is facing five straight days of strikes by either cabin crew or pilots, grounding hundreds of flights. Lufthansa pilots walked out on Monday and Tuesday and are set to renew their strike on Thursday and Friday. Flight attendants will begin a two-day strike on Wednesday after another 24-hour work stoppage on Friday last week.

Lufthansa said it was offering a third of its usual services during the pilot strike on Monday and Tuesday.

The war has hit Middle East hubs such as Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and opened a window of opportunity for European airlines to grab market share from rivals on lucrative long-haul routes.

Along with other European airlines, Lufthansa reported strong demand for destinations in Africa and Asia at the start of the conflict, and it added new services to its flight plan to scoop up passengers who otherwise would have travelled via the Gulf.

However, concerns over the reliability of Lufthansa’s services could push customers to opt for its rivals, said aviation analyst John Strickland, who called the escalation in the labour dispute with both pilots and cabin crew a “significant handicap” to the carrier’s efforts to benefit from the war.

Lufthansa was “trying to make the best of a challenging and unpredictable conflict situation . . . but it is hampered by industrial relations issues within the company”, he added.

On Wednesday, cabin staff planned to picket an anniversary event at Frankfurt airport to celebrate 100 years since the founding of Lufthansa, which will be attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Cabin crew are striking over a new collective bargaining agreement as well as protection for workers at Lufthansa CityLine, which is set to cease operations. Pilots, meanwhile, have demanded higher pension contributions from the airline group, which operates hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.

The flight chaos caused by the strikes comes as airlines are contending with soaring jet fuel prices in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and disruption to air traffic.

Lufthansa said there was little room to meet worker demands as the airline looks to cut costs and lift its profitability.

The latest round of strikes showed unions’ “complete indifference to the fate of our passengers and the future of Lufthansa”, the airline group’s human resources chief Michael Niggemann said. The industrial action was “irresponsible” coming in the face of “global political tension and significant risks to our business”, he added.

Lufthansa and rival European airlines have argued against the EU’s aviation deal with Qatar and others like it, claiming they offered free access to non-EU airlines, which do not have to meet the same environmental standards or face limits on state support.