A major European airline has axed a route from the UK that has been in operation since 2018, confirming it will no longer be available to book from the end of this month.

The development comes as the German carrier, one of the continent's largest airlines, also unveiled plans to slash 20,000 short-haul flights over the summer, as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East pushes up jet fuel prices and raises fears of shortages.

Lufthansa, Germany's flag carrier, has confirmed it will discontinue its service between Glasgow and Frankfurt, with the final flight between the two cities available to book on 31st May.

A Lufthansa Group spokesman told the Scottish Sun: "Following the decision to discontinue Lufthansa CityLine flights effective immediately and to reduce unprofitable flights in the future due to high kerosene prices, the Lufthansa Group's summer schedule will be reduced by just under one percent of available seat-kilometers.

"To compensate for this, Lufthansa has taken immediate action and will consolidate the flight schedules of all Lufthansa Group airlines, cancelling 20,000 flights by the end of October. As a result of these decisions, flights to Glasgow will no longer be operated by Lufthansa via Frankfurt, but for the time being, by Edelweiss via Zurich offering access to the Swiss International Air Lines network." Lufthansa is far from alone among European carriers in grounding flights. Scandinavian airline SAS confirmed it is axing more than 1,000 flights following a doubling in the price of jet fuel. Across the Atlantic, United Airlines announced it would be cutting 5% of its flights in the near term, with the aim of restoring its full schedule by autumn.

Other carriers are hiking fares in a bid to offset the spiralling costs. Virgin Atlantic has warned that the aviation industry "cannot absorb" jet-fuel costs at their current levels, leaving the airline with little choice but to push up ticket prices.

Corneel Koster, Virgin Atlantic's chief executive, told the Telegraph: "I was looking at improving our financial results by a really significant chunk. And then this happens. We have never seen jet fuel at these levels, with prices more than doubling. The industry cannot absorb increases like this."

The airline has introduced a surcharge of £50 on economy class tickets, while those travelling in premium economy face an additional £180 charge, and business class passengers will be hit with an extra £360 cost. Despite this, the airline maintains that these surcharges still fall short of covering the mounting expenses. Behind labour costs, fuel represents airlines' second-largest outgoing, accounting for roughly 27% of operating expenses. Jet fuel prices have doubled since the conflict began, surging from $85 to $90 per barrel to between $150 and $200 per barrel in recent weeks.