Lufthansa Group has just announced some significant transatlantic expansion, which will kick in as of the summer 2020 schedule. This latest development is in addition to the recent announcement of Swiss launching flights between Zurich and Washington.
Continue reading: Wow: Lufthansa Group Adding 6 New US Routes
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Your title is wrong. These 6 routes + ZRH-IAD make a total of 7 routes that LH Group are starting to the US.
Hey Ben,
EW will not discontinue their Longhaul Operations. The Aircraft will remain under the EW brand, but commercial steering and responsibility will be handed over to LH.
Odd, I guess they still can’t make up their mind about what they want to do with Eurowings...
Also is it just me or are both the in and outbound Bangalore flights timed terribly?
LH MUC-DTW will compete with DL for autocompanies seats. I'm surprised it took them this long as the FRA and MUC routes to DTW with DL were always in need with more seats.
I wonder if there may be something in the works with a new AS partnership or at least codeshare esp. if they were to buy Condor that has an existing partnership with AS.
Interesting that, other than IAD, Lufthansa Group's new flights are all into Delta and American hubs or into cities where United does not have a big presence. Could it be that Lufthansa is outgrowing its United partnership? Or is this just a case of trying to take away FRA and MUC nonstop traffic from American and Delta?
United and Lufthansa are trying to increate the number of city pairs they can serve directly across the Atlantic. The idea is to increate the number of one stop options they can offer their customers.
In the past if you wanted to go from, say, Stuttgart to Detroit on United/Lufthansa you'd have to have two connections. Now just one, potentially being attractive to more customers, being able to charge a bit more for and freeing up some seats on the hub to hub flights.
Delta is doing something similar, they offer routes from US non-hub markets to AMS or CDG. Meanwhile United and Lufthansa try to serve more 2nd cities from their exiting hubs. The effect is the same.
I think it's a great move though I am surprised but the number of seats they're adding at once. I wonder if they'll down size some hub to hub flights to compensate.
Another Thing You Forgot!!! The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Has Satellite Branches in Seattle and Detroit!!!! So it Would Make Since Lufthansa Would Deploy Their AIRBUSA350900 XWB Aircraft For These Two Cities!!! Lufthansa is All About The MONEY!!! I Have a Master List of All Lufthansa's Airbus A350 Routes That Fly to the United States. Lufthansa Group Has 15 A350'S Based in Munich Germany They Have Another 30 on Order with The Rest of Those Going To Swiss Air and Austrian Airlines. Also Don't Forget The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Locations in San Francisco, Denver, Cleveland, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, MO. Carsten Spohr and The Rest of the CEO's PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS!!!✌
Tim W.
San Diego California
Pro-Lufthansa Fan
Lufthansa used to have a service between Hamburg in New York in the 80s and 90s, but it was unfortunately abolished when they concentrated all the long haul flights in Frankfurt and Munich.
It's about to e Lufthansa (subsidiary of at least) returns to PHX. However Condor already operates that route.
That and I thought eurowings was cutting out long haul services.
@Ben Holz
Couldn't agree more. SEA-FRA is always full, and there are not enough alternatives to BA, when it comes to evening flights to Europe.
Cheers to any expansion of intl PHX service, even if it's doubling up on an existing route. For the size of Sky Harbor, our intl options are truly abysmal. I do question their timing... Seasonal service starting in late April is the slow season here. They must be betting on AZ locals heading out, not Europeans heading here.
Surprised to see Detrit getting so much attention. How many auto executives can thee be going back and forth on any given day?
Anchorage is a bit out there as well.
Just checked sky harbor web site and yep, the new service is real, rather than another one of those crazy rumors like Emirates to PHX a couple years back.
Wondering why they didn't do Munich to Phoenix instead considering Condor already does this route. Trying to push them out?
DTW desperately needs some transatlantic competition. Fares on DL to anywhere in Europe are consistently high/absurd. LH is usually around $200 cheaper than DL/AF but people here would rather pay the extra $200 and earn SkyMiles. It has to be a significant savings for people in Detroit to consider another airline. While the flight to MUC is a welcome addition, I don't believe DTW will see lower fares to Europe until there are more than 3 airlines offering transatlantic flights.
And they can fill the rest of the DTW-MUC flights with connections to and from that new Bangalore flight all day every day with the Indian population here...
I'm surprised Lufthansa hasn't started service to MCO from Munich, it seems long overdue for that to happen
Surprised that no IAH-MUC flight. Considering IAH is a UA Hub and the Oil Business fills that A380 to FRA.
Does Eurowings get full *A benefits or is it more like Level?
Could be an interesting future post -- the way some of these subsidiary LCCs work in the alliance system.
The expansions in Detroit and Seattle definitely are interesting considering the lack of connecting feed (and the fact that they aren’t really leisure destinations). Since both are Delta hubs (and Orlando is a big focus city for Delta as well), it seems that there is the possibility that a Delta-Eurowings partnership (interline, or perhaps even codeshare?) is in the cards. Does anyone else feel that this might be a possibility, or am I reading too much into this?
@ Brandon +1
Have you seen the posters at Sky Harbor featuring the 3 current non-stop flights from PHX to Europe? As if that’s acceptable lift for a city the size of PHX. What a joke.
As a person living in the metro Detroit area, there is both a large amount of German expats in Detroit (because of the auto industry - alot of German suppliers have their NA HQs here) and a couple of niche tourism sectors that for whatever reason seem to attract Germans (and other North / Central Europeans).
Detroit is considered one of the birthplaces of techno and there are alot of Germans that come here for the techo music festival and year around because of it.
While not unique to Germans, they seem to be particularly interested in "ruin porn" tours as well.
When Berlin's new airport hopefully opens next year, isn't Lufthansa going to grow from there?