Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG, trading as the Lufthansa Group, is a German aviation group. Its major and founding subsidiary airline Lufthansa German Airlines, branded as Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. It ranks second in Europe by passengers carried, as well as largest in Europe and fourth largest in the world by revenue. Lufthansa Airlines is also one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, which is the world's largest airline alliance, formed in 1997.
Lufthansa was founded in 1953 and commenced operations in April 1955.
Besides operating flights under its own brand Lufthansa Airlines, the Lufthansa Group also owns several other airlines, including Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, Eurowings, ITA Airways and Swiss International Air Lines. The group also owns several aviation-related companies, including Global Load Control, Lufthansa Consulting, Lufthansa Flight Training, Lufthansa Systems and Lufthansa Technik.
The company was founded as Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf on 6 January 1953 by staff of the former Deutsche Luft Hansa, Germany's national airline founded in 1926. While Deutsche Luft Hansa played a significant role in the development of commercial aviation in Germany, it was liquidated in 1951 due to its association with the Nazi regime during World War II. Luftag adopted the branding of the former flag carrier by acquiring the Luft Hansa name and logo in 1954.
Lufthansa's corporate headquarters are in Cologne. The main operations base, called Lufthansa Aviation Center, is located at Frankfurt Airport, the airline's primary hub. It also maintains a secondary hub at Munich Airport, along with its Flight Operations Centre.
History
1950s: Post-war (re-)formation
Lufthansa traces its history to 1926 when Deutsche Luft Hansa was formed in Berlin by the merger of Deutscher Aero Lloyd, the world's sixth-oldest airline, and Junkers Luftverkehr. Deutsche Luft Hansa was Germany's flag carrier until the outbreak of war when it came under the command of the Luftwaffe. During the war, the airline was focused mainly on aircraft maintenance and repair in which forced labour was employed on the site of Berlin Tempelhof Airport. Following the surrender of Germany and the ensuing Allied occupation of Germany, all aircraft in the country were seized and Deutsche Luft Hansa was dissolved. The remaining assets were liquidated on 1 January 1951.In an effort to create a new national airline, a company called Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf was founded in the city of Cologne in West Germany on 6 January 1953, with many of its staff having worked for the pre-war Deutsche Luft Hansa.
West Germany had not yet been granted full sovereignty over its airspace, so it was not known when the new airline could become operational. Nevertheless, in 1953, Luftag placed orders for four Convair CV-340 and four Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations aircraft and set up a maintenance base at Hamburg Airport. On 6 August 1954, Luftag acquired the name and logo of the liquidated Deutsche Lufthansa for , thus continuing the tradition of a German flag carrier with that name.
On 1 April 1955, Lufthansa won approval to commence operation of scheduled domestic flights. The airline's initial network linked Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Munich. International flights started on 15 May 1955, to London, Paris, and Madrid, followed by Super Constellation flights to New York City from 1 June of that year, and across the South Atlantic from August 1956.
However, the political realities of the time presented challenges to the airline. The United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France did not allow Lufthansa to fly to any part of the divided Berlin during the division of Germany. The airline had hoped this would only be a temporary matter and planned to move its headquarters and primary hub back to the German capital once the political situation changed, plans that ultimately never came to fruition, even after the lifting of these restrictions owing to German reunification in 1990 and the opening of the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport in 2020. Instead, Lufthansa turned Frankfurt Airport into its primary hub in 1958.
The airline also embarked on a marketing campaign to encourage travelers to consider visiting West Germany as it rebuilt in the wake of World War II and to use its hub to connect to other locations across Europe. By 1963, the airline, initially limited in its public relations efforts, had become a major purveyor of West Germany's image abroad.
During this time, East Germany attempted to establish its own "Lufthansa" airline in 1955, but legal challenges from the West German carrier led to its abandonment. East Germany subsequently launched Interflug as its national carrier in 1963.
1960s: Introduction of jetliners
Lufthansa embraced the jet age in 1958 by ordering four Boeing 707 aircraft. This marked a significant leap forward, allowing them to launch jet flights between Frankfurt and New York City in March 1960. To further bolster their jet fleet, Boeing 720B aircraft were later acquired.Lufthansa's network continued to expand throughout the early 1960s. In February 1961, their Far East routes extended beyond Bangkok to include Hong Kong and Tokyo. Africa saw additions in 1962 with Lagos, Nigeria, and Johannesburg, South Africa joining the network.
File:Lufthansa Boeing 727-30C Fitzgerald.jpg|thumb|right|A Lufthansa Boeing 727-100 approaching Heathrow Airport in 1978
Innovation continued with the introduction of the Boeing 727 in 1964. This enabled Lufthansa to launch a pioneering Polar route from Frankfurt to Tokyo via Anchorage in May of that year. Further expansion plans were solidified in February 1965 with the order of twenty-one Boeing 737 aircraft, entering service in 1968.
File:Lufthansa 737-130 D-ABED.jpg|thumb|right|Lufthansa was the launch customer of the Boeing 737. The image shows an original 737-100 at Hannover Airport in 1968.
Lufthansa's role in Boeing's history is noteworthy. They hold the distinction of being the first customers for the Boeing 737 and one of only four buyers of the initial 737-100 model. While NASA technically had the first built 737 airframe, it was ultimately delivered last and originally intended for Lufthansa, making them the first foreign launch customer for a Boeing airliner.
1970s–1980s: The wide-body era
The wide-body era for Lufthansa started with a Boeing 747 flight on 26 April 1970. It was followed by the introduction of the DC-10-30 on 14 January 1974, and the first Airbus A300 in 1976. In 1979, Lufthansa and Swissair became launch customers for the Airbus A310 with an order for 25 aircraft.The company's fleet modernisation programme for the 1990s began on 29 June 1985, with an order for fifteen Airbus A320s and seven Airbus A300-600s. Ten Boeing 737-300s were ordered a few days later. All were delivered between 1987 and 1992. Lufthansa also bought Airbus A321, Airbus A340, and Boeing 747-400 aircraft.
In 1987, Lufthansa, together with Air France, Iberia, and Scandinavian Airlines, founded Amadeus, an IT company that would enable travel agencies to sell the founders and other airlines' products from a single system.
Lufthansa adopted a new corporate identity in 1988. The fleet was given a new livery, while cabins, city offices, and airport lounges were redesigned.
1990s–2000s: Further expansion
Following German reunification on 3 October 1990, Lufthansa swiftly reintegrated Berlin into its network, marking the city's return as a key destination within 25 days.The mid-1990s saw a period of strategic restructuring for Lufthansa. This involved the establishment of independent operating companies within the Lufthansa Group, specializing in areas like maintenance, cargo, and information technology. Over time, the group further expanded through the addition of LSG Sky Chefs, Condor, and Lufthansa CityLine.
Lufthansa joined Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways International, and United Airlines to form Star Alliance on 14 May 1997, the world's first multilateral airline alliance.
Lufthansa actively addressed its historical legacy during this period. In 1999, the airline participated in a German initiative aimed at resolving wartime misdeeds, acknowledging the use of forced labor by its predecessor, Deutsche Luft Hansa. As part of the initiative, Lufthansa also reportedly paid tens of millions German marks. Additionally, a historical study was commissioned to shed light on this aspect of the company's past. However, Lufthansa was criticised for not publishing the resulting study for more than a decade.
The early 2000s witnessed Lufthansa demonstrate remarkable resilience in the face of industry challenges. Despite significant industry losses following the 11 September attacks, the airline maintained profitability and strategically avoided workforce reductions. Lufthansa became the launch customer for the Connexion by Boeing in-flight internet connectivity in 2004.
Lufthansa further solidified its position as a major European airline group through strategic acquisitions. The acquisitions of Swiss International Air Lines in 2005, Brussels Airlines, and Austrian Airlines in 2009 expanded the group's reach and network capabilities.
File:Lufthansa Airbus A380 and Boeing 747.jpg|thumb|right|A Boeing 747-8I and Airbus A380-800 of Lufthansa at Frankfurt Airport. The A380 and, together with the Airbus A350, formed the backbone for Lufthansa's long-haul routes in the 2010s.
At the end of the 2000s, Lufthansa made a large commitment to very large aircraft, introducing the first of 14 Airbus A380 in 2010 and becoming the launch customer for the Boeing 747-8I in 2012, eventually purchasing 19 of the type.
2010s: Losses and strikes
In 2011 Lufthansa planned significant growth at Berlin Brandenburg Airport for the originally planned opening in 2012 with many new connections from Berlin.After a loss of 298 million euros in the first quarter of 2010 and another 13 million loss in the year 2011 due to the economic recession and restructuring costs, Deutsche Lufthansa AG cut 3,500 administrative positions or around 20 percent of the clerical total of 16,800 in 2012. Lufthansa announced a restructuring program called SCORE to improve its operating profit. As a part of the restructuring plan, the company started to transfer all short-haul flights outside its hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, and Düsseldorf to the company's re-branded low-cost carrier Germanwings.
In September 2013, Lufthansa Group announced its biggest order, for 59 wide-body aircraft valued more than 14 billion euros at list prices. Earlier in the same year, Lufthansa placed an order for 100 next-generation narrow-body aircraft.
The group has had a long-standing dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit union, which has advocated for a system in which pilots can retire at the age of 55, and 60% of their pay be retained. Lufthansa pilots were joined by pilots from the group's budget carrier Germanwings to stage a nationwide strike in support of their demands in April 2014 which lasted three days. The pilots staged a six-hour strike at the end of the summer holidays in September 2014, which caused the cancellation of 200 Lufthansa flights and 100 Germanwings flights.
During the course of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, part of the fleet was branded "Fanhansa".
In November 2014, Lufthansa signed an outsourcing deal worth $1.25 billion with IBM that will see the US company take over the airline's IT infrastructure services division and staff.
Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa's CEO, called the March 2015 Germanwings Flight 9525 crash,"the darkest day for Lufthansa in its 60-year history", when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally flew an aircraft into a mountain, killing himself, 144 passengers and 5 crew members. Nonetheless, damage control by Spohr and his team was poor according to several sources. It was revealed that Lubitz suffered from a severe case of depression and mental disorders and had intentionally crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard whereas Spohr had misleadingly said the co-pilot "was 100% airworthy without any restrictions, without any conditions".
In June 2015, Lufthansa announced plans to close its small long-haul base at Düsseldorf Airport for economic reasons by October 2015. At the time, the base consisted of two Airbus A340-300s rotating between Newark and Chicago. As a result, service to Chicago from Düsseldorf was first made seasonal, suspended for the winter 2015 season, and then canceled altogether. Service to Newark, however, was initially maintained. From the winter 2015 schedule through the end of the winter 2016 schedule, Düsseldorf was served by aircraft which also flew the Munich-Newark route. The Düsseldorf-Newark route ended on 30 November 2018, which was operated with an Airbus A330-300 aircraft. Their base was officially closed in March 2019.
On 22 March 2016, Lufthansa ended Boeing 737-500 operations. The airline's last Boeing 737 was retired on 29 October 2016, after a flight from Milan to Frankfurt. Lufthansa operated the 737 in several variants for almost 50 years, the first aircraft having been delivered on 27 December 1967.
On 1 September 2015, Lufthansa implemented a 16 euro surcharge on Global Distribution System bookings. The surcharge is payable unless tickets are purchased from the airline's website, or its airport service centres and ticket counters. Amadeus said the new model would make "comparison and transparency more difficult because travellers will now be forced to go to multiple channels to search for the best fares." For the period between 1–14 September, the airline experienced a 16.1% drop in revenue, indicating to some that the new fee backfired, although the airline maintains that the decrease was due to the pilot strike, and "other seasonal effects".
In October 2017, Lufthansa took over 81 aircraft from the insolvent Air Berlin. The total purchase price for the shares acquired by Lufthansa from the insolvency estate of Air Berlin amounted to around 210 million euros.
On 4 December 2017, Lufthansa became the first European airline to receive the Skytrax 5-star certification. As stated by Skytrax, a key factor in the positive rating was the announcement of a new Business Class cabin and seating that was expected to be introduced in 2020. While this makes Lufthansa the 10th airline to be holding this award, in reality the 5th star was given to a product that was supposed to be introduced two years after the evaluation. In celebration, Lufthansa painted an Airbus A320 and a Boeing 747-8 in the "5 Starhansa" livery.
In March 2018, Lufthansa and other airlines like British Airways and American Airlines accepted a request from Beijing to list Taiwan as part of China.
In March 2019, Lufthansa ordered 20 Boeing 787-9 and an additional 20 Airbus A350-900 for its own and the group's fleet replacement and expansion. Also, the airline announced it would sell six A380 aircraft back to Airbus, beginning in 2022.
Pro-migration activists from Germany have criticised Lufthansa for performing deportation flights on behalf of the German government. In 2019, 4,573 people were deported on their planes, while their subsidiary Eurowings performed 1,312 deportations. This totals more than 25% of deportations in Germany in 2019. At least two deportees perished during transport.