Eight percent of all German passenger flights are now domestic. In 2019, the figure was 26.7 percent.
The Statistisches Bundesamt published the 2025 civil aviation figures on Tuesday. Of 1.5 million passenger connections in Germany last year, approximately 120,000 were domestic. In 2019 there were 241,000. The reduction is fifty percent.
The figures arrive six weeks after The Prompt reported on a voluntary reduction framework setting a target of flight-free participation for twenty million appointed passengers. The framework identified domestic aviation as the first eligible category. The new data is consistent with that assessment.
"The trend confirms what we said in April," said C. Bosch, a spokesperson for Flugfrei Deutschland e.V., a campaign organisation advocating the elimination of domestic air travel in Germany. "Fifty percent in six years without a formal policy. The remaining fifty percent is a smaller problem than the first fifty percent was. The target is reachable."
Flugfrei Deutschland is preparing a petition to the Bundestag calling for a statutory ban on scheduled domestic flights. The petition is expected to be submitted before the summer recess. A second phase targeting short-haul international routes is in preparation, Bosch confirmed. The organisation has not published a timeline for the second phase.
The three busiest domestic corridors in 2025 were Frankfurt-Berlin (11,000 flights), Frankfurt-Munich (10,700), and Frankfurt-Hamburg (10,300). Bosch described the Frankfurt-Berlin route as "the obvious remaining question." Adequate rail alternatives exist on all three corridors, she said.
Michael Kellner, energy policy spokesman for the Greens, said domestic flights were "dispensable." He extended the assessment to short-haul European routes and to private jets.
Prof K. Glasskügel of the Vienna Institute for Trend Analytics said the reduction trajectory was "entirely consistent" with the institute's projections. "The voluntary mechanism has performed as modelled," he said. "The remaining eight percent presents no methodological difficulty. The target is achievable within the current timeline." He declined to specify the timeline, noting that the underlying parameters remain proprietary to the institute's technology partner. The institute did not respond to a request for the partner's name.
The first quarter of 2026 recorded 137,700 short-haul flights from German airports, a decline of three percent against the same period in 2025. The direction has not changed.
Flugfrei Deutschland's petition is open for signatures.