Discover Airlines Expanding Fleet, Planning New Business Class

Discover Airlines (formerly known as Eurowings Discover) has announced plans to grow its fleet, and to also introduce a new passenger experience.

For those not familiar with Discover Airlines, this is a Lufthansa Group subsidiary that operates leisure flights out of Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC), to destinations like North America (including the Caribbean), Africa, and the Mediterranean.

Discover Airlines growing fleet to 33 aircraft by 2027

Discover Airlines is planning on expanding its fleet in the coming years. In the next three years (by mid-2027), the airline plans to grow its fleet from 27 aircraft to 33 aircraft. This will involve adding nine aircraft, as there are plans for three aircraft to be retired in the next couple of years. Specifically:

• Three Airbus A320s will join Discover Airlines’ fleet in 2025
• Six Airbus A330-300s will progressively join Discover Airlines’ fleet by mid-2027
• Discover Airlines is retiring three Airbus A330-200s in 2026 due to expiring contracts, so those planes will be replaced by larger A330-300s

While Discover Airlines doesn’t have a cutting edge fleet, the carrier’s fleet is at least standardized in terms of aircraft types, as it exclusively flies the A330 and A320. Furthermore, with this development, Discover Airlines will fully retire the A330-200, and will exclusively operate A330-300s for wide body aircraft, leading to more fleet commonality.

Presumably these planes will be acquired from Lufthansa, as the airline increasingly retires its previous generation aircraft, in favor of newer aircraft.

Here’s how Bernd Bauer, CEO of Discover Airlines, describes this development:

“After our launch three years ago and the successful development of our airline, we are now taking the next steps to further consolidate our position as a holiday airline in Germany and to sustainably strengthen the Lufthansa Group’s market presence in the growing private travel segment. With additional capacity and the conversion to a next-generation product, we will be able to serve the holiday and private travel segment even more comprehensively, efficiently and flexibly in the future. We look forward to accompanying even more people on vacation in the future.”

It’s not surprising to see Lufthansa Group continuing to grow Discover Airlines. The carrier has a better cost structure, due to cheaper labor contracts, so you can expect this operation to continue to expand over time. Finding labor arbitrage opportunities is sort of a specialty of Lufthansa Group.

Discover Airlines planning new business class

In addition to expanding its fleet, Discover Airlines also plans to introduce a new product on long haul routes. Starting in 2027, the airline plans to unveil a new business class experience, featuring direct aisle access from all seats in business class. We can also expect a new entertainment system with larger screens and better resolution in all classes of service.

There are no details yet about what kind of a product we should expect, as details are still being worked out. Up until now, Discover Airlines has just maintained the “inherited” interiors of jets. Most of the carrier’s long haul planes have Lufthansa’s old business class.

I suppose it’s possible that Discover Airlines introduces the Lufthansa Allegris product. However, I could also see the airline just going with a more generic reverse herringbone product. Only time will tell…

Bottom line

Discover Airlines plans to grow its fleet by six aircraft in the next few years, which includes taking delivery of additional A330s and A320s. On top of that, Discover Airlines will introduce a new business class experience in 2027, though it seems like the airline is still working out those details.

I suspect we’ll see significant growth from Discover Airlines over time, and we may even see more existing Lufthansa routes replaced by the low cost subsidiary.

What do you make of these Discover Airlines developments?