
Lufthansa has announced plans to merge two of its domestic and regional subsidiaries; Germanwings and Lufthansa Direct Services.
Lufthansa Direct Services, which operates all of Lufthansa’s domestic and European flights outside Frankfurt and Munich, will be merged Cologne-based low-cost carrier Germanwings from 1 January 2013. The new company, which will be headquartered in Cologne, will operate a fleet of approximately 90 aircraft on routes in Germany and Europe.
“Combining our domestic German and European point-to-point services has enormous potential to improve efficiency,” said Lufthansa’s CEO & Chairman, Christoph Franz. “Our aim is to once again fly these services profitably under the umbrella of a single company. This means we are continuing to offer our guests the prospect of a dense, high-quality network even outside of our Frankfurt and Munich hubs.”
Lufthansa said the name of the new merged entity would be revealed at a later date.