Lufthansa

Lufthansa
	File:Lufthansa Logo.svg
Founded	1926 (as Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft), refounded 1954
Hubs	Frankfurt International Airport; Franz Josef Strauß Int'l Airport
Focus cities	Düsseldorf International Airport; Hamburg International Airport; Berlin-Tegel; Zürich Airport
Frequent-flyer program	Miles & More
Alliance	Star Alliance
Fleet size	429 ( + 82 Orders )
Destinations	188
Parent company	Deutsche Lufthansa AG
Headquarters	Cologne, Germany
Key people	Jürgen Weber (Head of Supervisory Board and former CEO), Wolfgang Mayrhuber(CEO), Stefan Lauer (), Stephan Gemkow (CFO)
Website	http://www.lufthansa.com

Deutsche Lufthansa (pronounced: luf-tan-za AG is the largest German airline, and the second-largest in Europe (behind Air France-KLM, but before British Airways). The name of the company is derived from Luft (the German word for "air"), and Hansa (after Hanseatic League, the powerful medieval trading group).

Lufthansa is based in Cologne. Its main base and primary traffic hub is at Frankfurt International Airport in Frankfurt am Main, and the company has developed a second hub at Munich International Airport. Since its takeover of Swiss International Air Lines, Zürich Airport will become Lufthansa's third main hub.

Lufthansa is a founding member of Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance, in the world which was set up in 1997 and now numbers 18 airlines among its members, in which Lufthansa is the second-largest airline after United Airlines. The Lufthansa Group operates more than 400 aircraft and employs nearly 100,000 people world-wide.

In 2005, 51.3 million passengers flew with Lufthansa.

History

Founded in 1926 in Berlin as "Luftag", following a merger between "Deutsche Aero Lloyd" (DAL) and "Junkers Luftverkehr" on January 6 of that year. The company's original full name was Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft.

In the years to the outbreak of World War II developed into one of the world's leading airlines, pioneering routes to the Far East and across the North and South Atlantic, using a large fleet of mostly Dornier, Junkers, Heinkel, Focke-Wulf and other German-designed aircraft. After the outbreak of war in 1939, Lufthansa was able to maintain only services to neutral countries, but all flying suspended following Germany's defeat in 1945.

In the 1950s East Germany attempted to establish its own airline using the Lufthansa name, but this resulted in a dispute with West Germany, where the airline had been already re-established after the Second World War. East Germany instead called its national airline Interflug, which ceased operations in 1991. Lufthansa was banned from flying into West Berlin until the demise of the communist regime.

On 1 April, 1955 Lufthansa begins scheduled services within the Federal Republic of Germany. Later on international operations started on May 15th, 1955 to points in Europe and on June, 8th. to New York using Lockheed Super Constellations. South Atlantic routes were resumed in August of 1956

In 1958, Lufthansa placed order for four Boeing 707, which inaugurated jet services from Frankfurt to New York in March of 1960. The Boeing 720 were bought to back up the 707 and in February of 1961, Far East routes were extended beyond Bangkok, Thailand to Hong Kong and Tokyo, Japan. The cities of Lagos, Nigeria and Johannesburg, South Africa were reached in 1962.

Lufthansa introduced the Boeing 727 into service in 1964 and in May that same year, Lufthansa introduced Polar route from Frankfurt to Tokyo. In February of 1965 placed an order for twenty-one Boeing 737 medium-haul jets, who were later introduced into service in 1968

Lufthansa was the launch customer and purchased the largest number of the Boeing 737 aircraft, and one of only four buyers of new 737-100s (the others being NASA and Malaysia-Singapore Airlines and Avianca) although NASA only took one airframe. While the NASA airframe was technically the first constructed it was the last delivered and originally intended for delivery to Lufthansa). By doing so, Lufthansa became the first foreign launch customer for a Boeing commercial plane.

The beginning of the wide-body era was marked with the inaugural Boeing 747 flight on April 26th, 1970. In 1971 Lufthansa started the first service to South America

In 1979, Lufthansa together with Swissair were launch customers for the advanced new Airbus A310, with an order for twenty-five aircraft.

The major fleet re-equipment and modernisation programme for the 1990s initiated on June 29th, 1985 with the order for fifteen Airbus A320s and seven Airbus A300-600s with twenty-five and seven options respectively. Ten Boeing 737-300s were ordered a few days later. All the aircrafts were delivered between 1987 and 1992. Lufthansa's fleet was further enhanced with the acquisition of the Airbus A321, Airbus A340 and the Boeing 747-400

File:Airbus A321-131 - Lufthansa - D-AIRX.jpg

Lufthansa Airbus A321-100 Retrojet

Lufthansa CityLine Canadair CL-600-2B19 regional jet (CRJ-100)

Lufthansa adopts a new corporate identity in 1988. The fleet is given a new livery while cabins, city offices and airport lounges are redesigned.

On 28 October, 1990 -just 25 days after reunification- Berlin again becomes a Lufthansa destination.

On 18 May, 1997 Lufthansa, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways and United Airlines form the Star Alliance, the world's first multilateral airline alliance. In October Varig becomes a member.

In June 2003 Lufthansa opened new Terminal 2 at Munich's Franz Josef Strauß International Airport to relieve its main hub, Frankfurt, which has capacity constraints. It is one of the first terminals in Europe partially owned by an airline.

On 17 May 2004, Lufthansa became the launch customer for the Connexion by Boeing in-flight online connectivity service.

On 22 March 2005 SWISS consolidated with Lufthansa Airlines. The majority shareholders (the Swiss government and large Swiss companies) will be offered payment if Lufthansa's share price outperforms an airline index during the years following the merger. Swiss will continue to be run separately from Lufthansa.

Other Businesses

In addition to its mainline operation, Lufthansa has the subsidiaries. The most important are:

Lufthansa Cargo, flight-logistics-company
Lufthansa Technik, aircraft maintenance providers
Lufthansa Systems, aviation IT-providers
Lufthansa Regional, a regional carrier that is an alliance of several small airlines, including Lufthansa CityLine
Lufthansa CityLine, a regional carrier
Thomas Cook, a travel services provider
Air Dolomiti, an airline based in Trieste, Italy
Delvag, an insurance company specializing in air transport
LSG Sky Chefs, the world's largest airline caterer, which accounts for one third of the world's airline meals
Lufthansa Flight Training, a provider of flight crew training services to various airlines and the main training arm for the Airline's own pilots
Condor, a charter carrier and vacation consolidator

History of the Brand

The Lufthansa logo -an encircled crane in flight- was created as long ago as 1918. It was part of the livery of the first German airline, Deutsche Luftreederei GmbH (DLR), which began scheduled air services on 5 February, 1919. The stylised crane was designed by Professor Otto Firle. In 1926 Lufthansa adopted this symbol from Aero Lloyd AG, with which DLR was merged in 1923. The original creator of the name Lufthansa is believed to be F.A. Fischer von Puturzyn. In 1925 he published a book entitled "Luft-Hansa" which examined the options open to aviation policymakers at the time. Luft Hansa was the name given to the new airline which resulted from the merger of Junkers Lufthverkehr AG and Deutscher Aero Lloyd.

Destinations

Accidents and Incidents

Flight 540 was the first ever crash of a Boeing 747.

Flight 181, a Boeing 737 named "Landshut," was hijacked in October 1977. The captain was murdered, but all other crew members and all the passengers were freed safely when a German counter-terrorism force stormed the aircraft in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Fleet

Lufthansa operates the following aircraft (as of July 2006):

For the fleets of Lufthansa Cargo, Air Dolomiti, Augsburg Airways, Contact Air, Eurowings and Lufthansa CityLine see the corresponding Wikipedia pages.

Orders

In March 2006, the Lufthansa fleet average age was 10.1 years.

Fifty-two new aircraft additions are planned so far up to the end of 2015. The biggest capital expenditure project is the Airbus A380. It is to serve as a flagship for the airline.

Lufthansa has ordered 15 Airbus A380 aircraft and has a further 10 on option. The first will be delivered before the end of 2007. They are likely to be used on services to Asia, Canada and the USA (ref: Airliner World, March 2005).

Owing to its greatly expanded capacity the A380 will provide growth without having to increase the number of aircraft in use and will simultaneously improve the fleet's efficiency thanks to its expected 20 per cent lower operating costs than conventional long-haul aircraft. (ref: Lufthansa 2005 Annual Report)

Lufthansa has expressed interest in the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350. They are also very interested in the 747-8 passenger and freighter version. It is possible that Lufthansa could replace its 30 747-400 fleet with the more fuel efficient 747-8.

Livery

Lufthansa's livery is a Eurowhite scheme, composed of primarily white with blue and yellow/orange accents. A bare metal livery was proposed during the 80's, also a yellow tail-belly-engines with silver titles in the late 80's ( only 1 737 and 1 A310 ever carried this livery).

Numbers

Passengers: 51.3 Million ( January 2006)
Cargo: 1,736 Mio. Tonnes ( January 2006)
Employees: 91364 ( October 2005)

Through its Lufthansa Berlin Stiftung, it operates three classic German aircraft as well:

1 Junkers Ju 52
1 Messerschmitt Me 108
1 Dornier Do 27

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