Lufthansa Group (LHG) will significantly expand its leisure-oriented long-haul portfolio at its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Following the launch of Edelweiss in Zürich and the deployment of the first Eurowings long-haul aircrafts departing from Munich, there will now also be flights available from Frankfurt, along with an increase in flights from Munich. Eurowings will take off from Frankfurt with flights to the islands of Mauritius and Barbados when the winter flight schedule goes into effect in October 2019. In addition to this, there will also be flights to Windhoek in Namibia, with other destinations currently being planned.
From the Munich hub, Eurowings has already been successfully offering long-haul connections to a selection of tourist destinations since summer 2018. In the 2019/2020 winter schedule, Eurowings will also be connecting the Bavarian capital with Bangkok. Connections from Munich to additional flight destinations are currently being planned.
This step goes hand in hand with a closer cooperation between Lufthansa and Eurowings at Germany’s biggest hub airport:
“It is the right strategic step for the Group to combine the strengths of its two largest airlines in Frankfurt: going forward, we will be combining a product tailored to leisure travellers and families and the affordable cost structure of Eurowings with the sales and marketing power of Lufthansa at the Frankfurt location,” says Thorsten Dirks, Member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG and CEO of Eurowings.
For this expansion in the tourism segment, Eurowings will use a total of seven Airbus A330 aircraft (up to 310 seats), with a portion of its fleet operated by Sun Express Deutschland. Capacities will be distributed evenly between the two Lufthansa hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.