In a landmark ruling, the Hamburg Regional Court has ordered 10 members of the climate activist group Last Generation to pay more than €403,000 in damages to the Lufthansa Group.
The ruling marks the first nationwide imposition of such substantial financial penalties against the group’s members for disrupting operations at Hamburg Airport.
The written judgment, delivered on November 21, holds the activists liable for the economic fallout from their protest on July 13, 2023. That was when they infiltrated the airport apron and glued themselves to access points, halting ground operations for several hours.
Their action forced the cancellation of 57 flights operated by Lufthansa subsidiaries, including Eurowings and Lufthansa CityLine. It stranded thousands of passengers, many of whom had baggage mislaid, and triggered compensation claims and extra fuel costs.
The court calculated the total at €403,137.68, covering passenger reimbursements under European Union flight delay regulations, operational overruns and lost profits.
According to the judgment, the compensation consists of €115,374.20 in payments made to passengers at the airport counter, €92,164.04 in payments to passengers via customer service, €4,107.00 in additional kerosene consumption, €705.24 in further delay costs and €190,787.20 in lost profit.
The convicted climate activists also have to pay costs, rated at around €700,000.
Failure to do so could result in up to two years’ in jail per defendant, a stark escalation from the fines and shorter prison terms typically handed to Last Generation protesters for road blockades or public disruptions.
The ruling, prompted by a civil suit from Lufthansa, departs from prior criminal proceedings where activists faced charges of coercion or public nuisance but rarely multimillion-euro liabilities.
Legal experts anticipate it serving as a template for similar claims, with Düsseldorf Airport, Condor and TUI fly already reviewing lawsuits over comparable incidents.
Last Generation, inspired by the UK’s Just Stop Oil and Austria’s Letzte Generation, has staged hundreds of actions since 2021. They included gluing themselves to roads, bridges, and cultural sites to demand a fossil fuel phase-out treaty and citizen assemblies on climate policy, much to the annoyance of the general public.
Their Hamburg incursion, involving breaching security fences and targeting aircraft runways, drew widespread condemnation for endangering aviation safety and economic disruption, with police arresting 12 participants on site.
German Greens MP Sebastian Striegel experienced first-hand how dangerous blocking traffic for the climate can be when he was mowed down by a motorist attempting to circumvent the blockade. https://t.co/OVGOTSNY8J
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 15, 2024
The group defends such tactics as “civil resistance” against existential threats but critics, including former German transport minister Volker Wissing, have branded them “eco-terrorists” and pushed for harsher penalties.
This latest verdict follows a pattern of judicial toughening: Earlier this year, Berlin courts imposed non-suspended prison terms of up to 22 months on activists for repeated blockades. Munich prosecutors separately charged five members with forming a “criminal organisation” under anti-mafia statutes – a case that is still pending.
In April, a Nuremberg court sentenced Jesuit priest Jörg Alt to two months in jail for refusing to pay a €500 fine for a 2022 blockade.
Last Generation announced a strategic pivot in January from street glue-ins to broader civil disobedience but incidents persist and there are around 3,700 ongoing Berlin probes alone.
The so-called Awareness Team of the German climate group, Last Generation, has gone on indefinite strike against the leadership of the organisation, demanding a “credible distancing from anti-Semitism”. https://t.co/trX6Zz3V5z
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 18, 2023
