Lufthansa will be discontinuing one of its newest transatlantic flights less than a year after launching it… sort of (thanks to Thrifty Traveler for flagging this).
Changes to Lufthansa’s Frankfurt to Minneapolis route
In June 2024, Lufthansa launched a 5x weekly, year-round flight between Frankfurt (FRA) and Minneapolis (MSP). The route is operated by a Boeing 787-9 with the following schedule:
LH482 Frankfurt to Minneapolis departing 11:10AM arriving 1:15PM
LH483 Minneapolis to Frankfurt departing 3:15PM arriving 6:40AM (+1 day)
This is a pretty cool route for the airline, given that Minneapolis is a Delta fortress hub, and doesn’t have that much long haul service from airlines other than Delta.
Unfortunately there’s a negative update when it comes to this service — Lufthansa will terminate this route as of April 29, 2025. However, the route isn’t going away altogether. As of May 2, 2025, the route will be taken over by Lufthansa Group subsidiary Discover Airlines, which will operate the route 4x weekly with an Airbus A330-300.
For some passengers, this will have limited implications, since they can still book tickets through Lufthansa, and book routings that feed into Lufthansa’s larger network through Frankfurt.
However, there are also downsides to these changes. On Discover Airlines, the passenger experience generally isn’t as good, service isn’t as good, and Discover Airlines doesn’t fully participate in Star Alliance in terms of earning and redeeming miles, and taking advantage of elite perks. In particular, in business class passengers will go from having reverse herringbone seats in Lufthansa’s 787-9 business class…
…to having seats comparable to Lufthansa’s old business class in Discover Airlines’ A330 business class.
Some people may think “well at least fares will be cheaper.” No, I wouldn’t count on that. The only thing that’s changing in that regard is that Lufthansa Group’s margins will increase.
Why Lufthansa is cutting Minneapolis flights
Lufthansa claims that it’s cutting the Minneapolis route due to lack of aircraft availability. Indeed, Lufthansa is dealing with serious aircraft delivery delays, in particular with Boeing aircraft.
However, it’s a bit more nuanced than that — I’m sure if the route were performing super well and had a bunch of high yield traffic, Lufthansa would find a way to make an aircraft available for it. Instead, clearly this is one of Lufthansa’s lower priority long haul routes for having a mainline aircraft. After all, it’s not that one specific aircraft is tied to one specific route. Instead, it’s part of a larger fleet planning puzzle.
Lufthansa claims that it plans to resume Minneapolis flights in the second half of 2026 with its own aircraft, though personally I wouldn’t count on that. It’s possible that it happens, but I wouldn’t consider it to be likely.
Bottom line
In April 2025, Lufthansa will be cutting its Frankfurt to Minneapolis route, handing it over to subsidiary Discover Airlines. This is happening less than a year after the route launched. So while Lufthansa is claiming this change is due to aircraft availability, there’s a bit more to it than that.
While the load factors on this route have been decent, I imagine the yields haven’t, or else the airline wouldn’t risk offering a lower quality product.
What do you make of Lufthansa cutting its Minneapolis route, and transferring it to Discover Airlines?
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