The airline Lufthansa has a long tradition.
Recently, the airline made a name for itself due to losses in the billions and the government aid required in the wake of the corona crisis.
Frankfurt am Main - With more than 110,000 employees and a turnover of around 16 billion euros in 2019, Lufthansa is the largest airline in Germany.
The company, which was founded in 1926, has more than 530 subsidiaries and associated companies.
Lufthansa: Foundation and milestones in the history of the airline
The history of Lufthansa goes back to the beginning of the 20th century.
On April 6, 1926, the airlines Deutscher Aero Lloyd AG and Junkers Luftverkehrs AG merged to form Deutsche Luft Hansa AG.
The company headquarters was in Berlin.
In 1933 the company was renamed Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft.
Flight operations ceased at the end of World War II and the company was liquidated by the Allied forces in 1951.
Today's Lufthansa is therefore not a direct legal successor to the first company of the same name.
It also had no relationship with the GDR's Deutsche Lufthansa, which was founded in the GDR in 1955 and closed in 1963.
Lufthansa AG, which still operates today, was founded in 1953 as Luftag - a stock corporation for air traffic requirements. A year later, those responsible acquired the naming rights to the traditional Lufthansa and to the trademark, the crane. The Luftag was renamed Deutsche Lufthansa AG. On April 1, 1955, domestic German operations began with two Convair aircraft. In August of the same year, the fleet headed for European destinations and carried out a special flight with the German national athletics team to Helsinki.
A short time later, Lufthansa expanded international flight operations with destinations in America, Africa and the Far East.
The South American route was opened in 1956: From Düsseldorf and Frankfurt it went via Paris, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires / Argentina.
In 1960, the airline took over the first aircraft from the manufacturer Boeing.
This marked the beginning of the age of jet aircraft at Lufthansa.
Ten years later, a B747 completed a long-haul flight for the first time.
Lufthansa: From state ownership to privatization
From its re-establishment in the 1950s until 1963, Lufthansa was almost entirely owned by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Gradual privatization followed, which reached a high point in the 1990s.
Until 1994 the airline acted as the flag carrier of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Flag carriers are airlines that are predominantly state-owned.
In 1995 the company converted three of its divisions - Lufthansa Technik AG, Lufthansa Cargo AG and Lufthansa Systems GmbH - into independent companies.
Two years later the airline was completely privatized.
Lufthansa: An overview of today's organization
Today Lufthansa is made up of three business areas:
Network Airlines with the airlines Lufthansa German Airlines, SWISS and Austrian Airlines
Eurowings with the flight companies Eurowings and Brussels Airlines as well as a stake in the Turkish airline SunExpress
Aviation Services with the areas of logistics, technology and catering as well as other corporate areas, including the IT companies and Lufthansa Aviation Training
A total of 532 subsidiaries and affiliated companies belong to the Lufthansa Group (as of 2020).
In May 1997 Lufthansa was a founding member of the Star Alliance, together with four other airlines:
Air Canada
United Airlines
SAS Scandinavian Airlines
Thai Airways
Today, 26 airlines belong to the organization and, on average, complete more than 18,500 take-offs and landings a day.
The fleet comprises a total of around 4,600 aircraft, and 641 million passengers traveled with Star Alliance companies in 2016.
This makes it the largest aviation community in the world.
The company management consists of a six-person executive board with Carsten Spohr as chairman.
The Supervisory Board is Dipl.-Ing.
Dr.-Ing.
Eh Jürgen Weber as honorary chairman.
Dr.
Karl-Ludwig Kley takes over the current chairmanship.
Lufthansa: The fleet
In addition to the fleets of Lufthansa and its regional partners, there are those of the subsidiaries Eurowings, SWISS and Edelweiß Air, Austrian and Brussel Airlines, as well as the freight transport of Lufthansa Cargo.
Lufthansa operates the following aircraft in addition to its regional partners as of the end of 2021:
model |
number |
Seats |
Airbus A380-800 |
8th |
509 |
Boeing 747-8 |
19th |
364 |
Boeing 747-400 |
8th |
371 |
Airbus A340-600 |
5 |
297 |
Airbus A350-900 |
17th |
293 |
Airbus A340-300 |
17th |
283 |
Airbus A330-300 |
15th |
255 |
Airbus A321neo |
11 |
215 |
Airbus A321-100 / 200 |
63 |
200 |
Airbus A320neo |
30th |
180 |
Airbus A320-200 |
63 |
168 |
Airbus A319-100 |
31 |
138 |
Embraer 195 |
17th |
120 |
Embraer 190 |
9 |
100 |
Bombardier CRJ900 |
31 |
90 |
The following aircraft are in use at Lufthansa Cargo:
Boeing 777F
MD-11F
As of the end of 2020, the organization's fleet consists of a total of 757 aircraft with an average age of 12.5 years.
That is six fewer than in the same period last year - 22 have been added, 28 have been eliminated.
Of the 22 new additions, 18 are fresh from the factory:
two Boeing 777F
two Airbus A350-900
three A321neo
eleven A320neo
Four A320neo were purchased used.
With the lower number in 2020, Lufthansa is taking a first step towards the planned reduction of the fleet by 150 aircraft.
The aim should be to adapt the range of flights and the capacity of the fleet to the demand that is likely to change in the longer term, according to the company: The air traffic market contracted sharply in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Lufthansa recorded a rapid decline in sales that year: from more than 16 billion euros in 2019 to just under 13.6 million.
Lufthansa: Corona crisis and the consequences
With the predominant cessation of air traffic in spring 2020, Lufthansa also left its fleet almost completely on the ground. At the end of May 2020, a rescue package for the largest German airline was decided. The package comprised various types of state aid as well as equity measures with a total value of around nine billion euros. In addition to the German state, the countries Austria, Belgium and Switzerland are also involved in the flow of money to a lesser extent. By the third quarter of 2021, four billion of the total amount had been called up.
Due to the gradual resumption of air traffic, the company posted a lower loss in the following year: In the second quarter of 2021, at 756 million euros, it was only half of the previous year.
In the first half of 2021 there are negative revenues of 1.8 billion euros on the books.
In the same period of the previous year, the airline recorded a loss of 3.6 billion euros.
The company therefore had to take state aid in 2021 despite the revival of business: 1.5 billion euros flowed towards Frankfurt am Main.
Lufthansa: National hubs
Most of Lufthansa’s international flights depart from Frankfurt am Main Airport (FRA). The airline will head for a total of 157 destinations from there in 2019. Munich Airport (MUC) is in second place. Most of the continental flights depart from the Bavarian capital. In 2019, the fleet headed for 152 destinations.
There are international, intra-European and intra-German connections from both airports.
Some of these are taken over by the fleets of the subsidiaries.
Eurowings, for example, handles numerous flights within Germany and Europe.
Lufthansa itself mainly flies to North and South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Destinations in Australia and New Zealand are taken over by partners from the Star Alliance network.
For example, Singapore Airlines flies to Oceania via Singapore and Thai Airways with a stop in Bangkok.
Lufthansa's unprecedented record flight took place on January 19, 2011: with a non-stop flight time of 4:48 hours, an Airbus A340-600 was en route from Munich to Honolulu in Hawaii.
