Germany's largest airline Lufthansa announced on Wednesday that a total of 23,000 short, medium and long haul flights would be cancelled by April 24 due to the spread of the coronavirus. 

Due to the "exceptional circumstances" caused by the spread of the coronavirus, further cancellations are expected in the coming weeks, Lufthansa Group noted. 

The capacity adjustments would mainly affect Europe, Asia and the Middle East, according to Lufthansa. 

However, Lufthansa stressed that despite the cancellations, the German airline would take care to ensure that "all destinations on all continents can be reached" via the hubs of Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels. 

Lufthansa announced to present an adjusted flight schedule for the period after April 25 at a later date. Customers who provided their contact information would be "proactively informed" by Lufthansa if their flight was cancelled. 

Since the beginning of the year, shares of Germany's largest airline Lufthansa have fallen by around 40 percent and were also among the biggest losers in the German DAX index on Wednesday.

(Cover: A Lufthansa plane. /VCG)