Lufthansa to merge regional carriers
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 the Germanwings and Direct Services aircraft, along with the fleet of Eurowings (part of Lufthansa Regional), taking the joint entity’s total fleet to approximately 90 aircraft, operating direct services 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, Dr 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. And our employees in these areas have the prospect of secure jobs within a company of the Lufthansa Group,” he added.
Lufthansa said the name of the new merged entity would be revealed at a later date.