With the final end of Air Berlin’s service last month, Germany is experiencing a shortage of seats on domestic flights. The bankrupt airline was Germany’s No. 2 domestic carrier. Lufthansa is stepping into the gap with added service.
Lufthansa says it will add 1,000 flights a month through its low-cost Eurowings subsidiary, provided it gets approval from European competition regulators. In the meantime, Lufthansa is taking up some of the slack by putting larger planes on some routes, including 747s on the high-volume Frankfurt-to-Berlin route, a one-hour flight normally served by A320s.
The high demand for seats has led to price increases and few discounts. Lufthansa’s CEO says that getting the new flight permissions will change that: “I can promise that new domestic flights will bring stable prices again.” He did not explain why Lufthansa couldn’t simply hold to previous prices.
In the long run, Lufthansa expects to beef up its schedule and its fleet by taking over 81 former Air Berlin planes and hundreds of landing slots in a €210 million deal. Much of the rest will go to EasyJet, once approvals are complete.
Photo: BriYYZ/Wikimedia
