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Bringing packages to their destination instead of tourists: Condor holiday airline
Photo: Werner Kerschbaummayr / DPA
Air travel is rarely taking place in the corona pandemic, which is why the Condor holiday airline is expanding its freight business.
Both companies announced that parcels are to be transported from Leipzig to Ireland, Italy and Cologne for the logistics company DHL.
Condor is using four long-haul Boeing 767 aircraft for this.
The aircraft's seats remain vacant anyway: only the cargo holds in the lower part of the aircraft are loaded.
Since April 2020 Condor has been flying purely freight connections in addition to the few holiday flights that are still on offer.
The crew of the aircraft also benefit from the flights: the short flights for DHL offer additional training flights, the company says.
The collaboration is initially limited to the end of May 2021.
Competitor Lufthansa is meanwhile relaxing the Corona bans and expanding the tourist offer.
With around 20 destinations from Frankfurt and 13 from Munich, it is the most extensive range of classic holiday destinations in years, Lufthansa announced.
"Our tourist program for summer 2021 is stronger than ever before," said Lufthansa board member Harry Hohmeister.
"We assume that many countries will relax their travel restrictions towards the summer after more and more people have been vaccinated."
Business travel will probably be less popular in the future
The longing for vacation is great, said Hohmeister.
Corona vaccinations and tests as well as the hygiene concepts of airports and airlines made air travel possible.
A strong catch-up effect can therefore be expected in summer.
Like all airlines, Lufthansa is still in crisis because of the pandemic.
The group is protected from bankruptcy with nine billion euros in government funds from Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.
Lufthansa is now relying more on holiday flights than it was before the crisis, because more profitable business trips will probably not be in demand for much longer because of the meetings and conferences that have now been moved to the Internet.
With its program, the airline flies to many destinations around the Mediterranean and the Caribbean in summer, which Condor and TUI also fly to.
In Europe, these include the Canary Islands, Greece, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt.
The new tourist long-haul airline "Eurowings Discover" is to take off to long-haul destinations such as the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Mauritius or Anchorage in Alaska.
Current figures from the international airport association ACI meanwhile illustrate how weak aviation is currently due to the pandemic.
In the first two weeks of February, airports in Europe counted 89 percent fewer passengers than a year ago, shortly before the global corona outbreak.
That was 157 million fewer passengers.
From Europe there have been a good 6,900 fewer flight connections, and since November 900 have been canceled.
In Germany, the decrease in the number of passengers was 90 percent.
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jlk / apr / dpa / Reuters
