In a first in Germany, a group of climate activists of the "Last Generation" has been sentenced to a remarkable fine because of an action at Hamburg Airport in the summer of 2023.
The Hamburg Regional Court found ten participants guilty of their blockade action at Hamburg Airport and sentenced them to joint damages of exactly 403,137.68 euros in favor of the Lufthansa Group. Alternatively, up to two years of administrative detention.
The Hamburg Regional Court (LG) has upheld a corresponding claim for damages by Lufthansa and sentenced the activists jointly and severally (judgment of 20.11.2025, case no. 325 O 168/24). This was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the court LTO on request.
A total of 57 flights of the Lufthansa Group were canceled, around 8500 passengers were affected. The Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings had sued, also on behalf of Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines.
The verdict is now available to the parties involved. The court found an "encroachment on the established and operated commercial enterprise". The costs are made up of direct compensation payments to passengers, additional aviation fuel (ATF) consumption, delay costs and a lost profit of almost 191,000 euros.
The proceedings concerned an action by the group in July 2023 at Hamburg Airport. In the middle of the holiday season, they paralyzed the airport for about four hours.
According to Bild, 8,500 passengers of the Lufthansa subsidiaries Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines were affected, and 57 flights were cancelled.
Marco Buschmann (FDP), then Federal Minister of Justice, tweeted about the action that the blockers would probably have to "expect claims for damages worth millions".
It didn't turn out quite that badly, but at least the total six-figure sum is at stake for the damages awarded. According to Bild, it is specifically about a good 207,000 euros for payments to passengers, around 190,000 euros for lost profits and almost 5,000 euros for additional consumption of kerosene and other delay costs.
In addition to the main claim, the defendants must also bear the procedural costs as the decision is considered a possible precedent: Other airports and airlines are also considering lawsuits against similar actions. So far, activists in comparable cases have gotten away with fines (1700 euros) or short prison sentences (four months).
In a similar situation, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport also sued several climate activists for damages on November 24, 2022, when the climate activists of the Last Generation had paralyzed flight operations at BER for almost two hours. According to the Federal Police, two groups gained access to the airport grounds.
Some of them had glued themselves to the ground. BER had to stop operations on both runways. According to BER, several thousand passengers from a total of 40 flights were affected, which were either cancelled or diverted.
