Lufthansa Ditches Duty Free Carts as Cabin Space Becomes Premium Real Estate

Lufthansa is to become the latest major international airline to ditch in-flight Duty Free shopping, part of a broader trend within the industry that airlines have blamed on changing consumer behavior and the rise of online shopping behemoths like Amazon.

Flicking through a dog-eared Duty Free catalog is becoming an increasingly rare opportunity on many airlines and by September 2025, a plethora of tax-free goodies will no longer be available on Lufthansa flights.

Lufthansa Confirms End of Inflight Duty Free

Confirming the news to German aviation news website AeroTELEGRAPH, a spokesperson for Lufthansa said the carrier had already started to remove Duty Free carts from its most poorly performing long-haul routes in February, while inflight shopping will be banished forever at the end of the Summer.

Along with changing consumer behavior, another reason behind the decision to abandon inflight Duty Free shopping is the ever-increasing optimization of aircraft cabins and galleys.

Every Inch of Cabin Space Is So Important

Airlines are under pressure to make every inch of space on their aircraft profitable, especially as First and Business Class seats grow in size and take up more of the limited space.

That means optimizing the space onboard as much as possible. Just look at how Airbus has already redesigned the cabin wall of its flagship A350 aircraft so that airlines can potentially squeeze an extra seat per row in the Economy cabin.

And no, it’s not your imagination; onboard lavatories are really getting smaller, even on long-haul aircraft, where new slimline bathrooms are being installed to make way for additional seats.

And it’s not just the seating area that’s getting denser. Airplane kitchens or galleys are shrinking (like in the case of American Airlines reconfigured Boeing 777-300s), so airlines have to think really hard about whether a Duty-Free cart can justify its existence onboard.

What Other Airlines Have Already Jettisoned In-Flight Duty Free?

To some extent, it is actually a surprise that Lufthansa has taken so long to come to this conclusion, given just how many other airlines across Europe have already ditched in-flight Duty Free sales.

• In 2019, Scandinavian carrier SAS announced it was dispensing with in-flight Duty-Free.
• The same year, Dutch flag carrier KLM announced it would phase out in-flight Duty Free by January 2020.
• Finnair followed suit in 2023 and no longer offers Duty Free on any of its flights.

At the start of the pandemic, British Airways also jettisoned its Duty Free carts, but last year, the airline decided to reintroduce a small range of tax-free goodies on a small number of long-haul routes as part of a continuing evaluation of the concept.

Across the Pond in North America, major US carriers haven’t carried in-flight Duty Free for years. United Airlines was the first airline to abandon the popular past time in 2015, while American Airlines followed suit in 2015 following a disagreement with its Duty Free vendor.

Delta Air Lines didn’t hold out much longer and ditched the opportunity to buy Duty Free onboard its flights in 2016.

It’s Not All Over For Mile High Shopping

If you are looking to partake in some retail therapy at 35,000 feet, then low-cost airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair in Europe remain your best bets, while internationally, Emirates continues to plug its Duty Free cart at every opportunity.

As for Lufthansa, aviation geeks don’t need to worry about the future of its popular airport Worldshop concessions that sell a massive range of branded goodies, collectibles, and collaborations with the likes of Rimowa.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the German flag carriers confirmed that the Worldshop concessions weren’t going anywhere.

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Do you miss in-flight Duty Free, or is it time we left it in the past? Share your thoughts in the comments below…