Lufthansa

From Free net encyclopedia

Lufthansa (Deutsche Lufthansa AG) is the largest German airline company, and one of the largest operators in the world. The literal translation from German is "The Air Trade Group". Lufthansa's headquarters is in Cologne while its main base and primary traffic hub is at Frankfurt International Airport in Frankfurt am Main.

The company has developed a second hub at Munich's Franz Josef Strauß International Airport and since its take over of SWISS, Zurich Airport will become Lufthansa's third main hub.

Lufthansa is a founding member of Star Alliance, one of the world's major airline alliances. The Lufthansa Group operates more than 300 aircraft and employs nearly 100,000 people world-wide. In 2005, 51.3 million passengers flew with Lufthansa.

1 History
2 Other Businesses
3 Destinations
4 Fleet
5 See also
6 External links

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History

The company was founded in 1926 and headquartered in Berlin, following a merger between "Deutsche Aero Lloyd" (DAL) and "Junkers Luftverkehr" on January 6 of that year. The company's original full name was Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft. The name Lufthansa derives from Luft (the German word for "air") and Hansa (the Hanseatic trade organization that was mainly active in Northern Europe during the medieval times).

In the 1950s East Germany attempted to establish its own airline using the Lufthansa name, but this resulted in a dispute with West Germany, where the airline had been already re-established after the Second World War. East Germany instead called its national airline Interflug, which ceased operations in 1991. Lufthansa was banned from flying into West Berlin until the demise of the communist regime.

Lufthansa was the launch customer of the Boeing 737 aircraft, and the only buyers of new 737-100s. By doing so, Lufthansa became the first foreign launch customer for a Boeing commercial plane. On 17 May 2004, Lufthansa became the launch customer for the Connexion by Boeing in-flight online connectivity service.

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In June 2003 Lufthansa opened new Terminal 2 at Munich's Franz Josef Strauss International Airport to relieve its main hub, Frankfurt, which is plagued with capacity constraints. It is one of the first terminals in Europe partially owned by an airline.

On 22 March 2005 SWISS consolidated with Lufthansa Airlines. The deal consists of Lufthansa offering public shareholders the average price over the weeks prior to the announcement. The majority shareholders (the Swiss government and large Swiss companies) will be offered payment if Lufthansa's share price outperforms an airline index during the years following the merger. Swiss will continue to be run separately from Lufthansa.

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Other Businesses

In addition to its mainline operation, Lufthansa has many subsidiaries. The most important are:

Lufthansa Cargo, the world´s leading flight-logistics-company
Lufthansa Technik, one of the world's largest aircraft maintenance providers
Lufthansa Systems, one of the world's leading aviation IT-providers
Lufthansa Regional, a regional carrier that is an alliance of several small airlines, including Lufthansa CityLine
Lufthansa CityLine, a regional carrier
Thomas Cook, a travel services provider
Air Dolomiti, an airline based in Trieste, Italy
Delvag, an insurance company specializing in air transport
LSG Sky Chefs, the world's largest airline caterer, which accounts for one third of the world's airline meals
Lufthansa Flight Training, a major provider of flight crew training services to various airlines and the main training arm for the Airline's own pilots
Condor, a charter carrier and vacation consolidator

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Destinations

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Fleet

The Lufthansa fleet consists of the following aircraft (as per December 2005):

18 Avro RJ85
20 CRJ-700
40 CRJ-100/200
15 Airbus A319-100
36 Airbus A320-200
26 Airbus A321-100/200
2 Airbus A330-200 (to leave fleet by October 2006, both are Sabena aircaft featuring old Sabena seats)
10 Airbus A330-300

13 Airbus A300-600
29 Airbus A340-300
10 Airbus A340-600 (launch customer of aircraft; further 7 on order)
19 MD-11F (Lufthansa Cargo only)
33 Boeing 737-300
29 Boeing 737-500
29 Boeing 747-400 (+1 B747 stored. Re-entry into service in summer 2006)

In March 2006, Lufthansa fleet average age is 11.2 years old.

Lufthansa number 8 Airbus Airbus A330-300 was 4,000th Airbus aircraft built.

Lufthansa has ordered 15 Airbus A380 aircraft. It has a further 10 on option. The first will be delivered before the end of 2007 and they are likely to be used on services to Asia and the USA (ref: Airliner World, March 2005).

Lufthansa has also expressed interest in the Boeing 747-800 passenger and freighter models. Talks with Boeing on this aircraft are on-going.

Through its Lufthansa Berlin Stiftung, it operates three classic German aircraft as well:

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