Lufthansa CEO tells magazine Iran war will diminish Gulf carriers' dominance in Asia

Germany's Lufthansa expects the dominance of Gulf carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways on Asian routes to be diminished by the Iran war, CEO Carsten Spohr told business magazine Manager Magazin in an interview published on Tuesday.

"The major hubs of the Gulf carriers are located in a region that is now clearly exposed to new risks. What this means for the future of global air travel remains to be seen," he said.

Spohr added that the war would also discourage recent talks about giving more take-off and landing slots at German airports to Emirates.

"It weakens European sovereignty if we are increasingly less able to connect to the growing markets of Asia via our own routes and become ever more dependent on hubs outside Europe," he said.

On routes to North America, he said Lufthansa has been able to offset a slowdown in demand last year for Europeans travelling to the U.S. with an uptick from the other direction. 

"We expect to have more Americans than Europeans on board our aircraft on North Atlantic routes this summer," Spohr said. 

Reuters