Condor has lost access to Lufthansa feeder flights in Germany, a change that will hurt consumers in the short term even as it may ultimately push Condor toward better partnerships.
Condor Loses Lufthansa Connections, A Setback For Consumers That Could Spur Smarter Partnerships
For years, Condor relied on a special pro-rate arrangement with Lufthansa that let customers buy one ticket from smaller European cities to Frankfurt and then connect to Condor long-haul flights. That arrangement ended after a series of legal twists. Lufthansa won a legal victory at the end of 2024 before Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (BGH), with the court holding that Lufthansa did not have to provide subsidized lights to Condor. But an investigation by the European Commission early in 2025 threw that divestment into disarray, with the Commission expressing worry about unfair competition. However, the European Commission has now decided to back off and a German court has again given Lufthansa the effective green light that it need not offer discouned flights to Condor.
In the short term, this will likely be bad for travelers. Without the Lufthansa feed, many one-stop itineraries become two separate tickets, which means no through check of bags (or at least not without hassle), more risk during irregular operations, and fewer schedule choices from secondary cities into Condor’s long-haul bank at Frankfurt. Even Condor service from Frankfurt to cities like Berlin, Rome, and Zurich, the practical impact would be network trims, fewer seasonal options, and thinner frequencies. Less connectivity will raise the total trip cost even when the long-haul fare looks similar, because the added positioning flight and time buffer negate the savings…it will become very inconvenient to travel on Condor to points beyond its Frankfurt hub.
A Chance For Condor To Grow
But there is a silver lining. Condor has been building a partner ecosystem that can replace Lufthansa in meaningful ways. In North America, Condor already works with Alaska Airlines, giving Mileage Plan members earning and redemption and providing feed at gateways like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. JetBlue has now deepened ties as well, adding TrueBlue earning and redemption on Condor, which unlocks convenient connections at New York JFK, Boston, and Fort Lauderdale. In Canada, a new codeshare with WestJet improves access beyond Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver. Outside North America, a reciprocal codeshare with Emirates broadens connectivity over Dubai.
These partnerships matter because they can restore much of what consumers are losing: single-ticket itineraries, through-checked bags, coordinated schedules, and usable loyalty currency on both sides of the Atlantic. Longer term, Condor is also signaling interest in a deeper anchor partner or even an alliance alignment. If Condor cements a broader U.S. partnership and adds more European feed through non-Lufthansa carriers, the customer experience could improve even over the current Lufthansa arrangement.
The trouble is, most folks want to go beyond Frankfurt…Condor must find a European partner as well.
Germany is a tough aviation market. Air Berlin failed and Condor will struggle if Lufthansa follows through on pulling the plug. Might IAG or Air France-KLM step in? Perhaps. But as Aegean expands, I wonder if we might see a Condor-Aegean link, despite Aegean being a Star Alliance member and Lufthansa codeshare partner. Could we see the same with Turkish Airlines and smaller carriers like AeroItalia, Neos, and Volotea?
Whatever happens, this strikes me as a pivotal time for Condor to innovate and evolve.
CONCLUSION
Losing Lufthansa feed is a near-term loss for consumers who valued simple, one-ticket journeys through Frankfurt. Connections will be harder and choice will shrink on some routes. Yet the same shock may force Condor to accelerate partnerships and add intra-European routes of its own that ultimately serve travelers better. If Condor leans into Alaska and JetBlue in the U.S., continues to expand with WestJet and Emirates, and secures additional European feeders, customers could regain seamless itineraries and stronger loyalty value without relying on Lufthansa…and that would actaully be good for competition.
image: Condor
“smaller carriers like AeroItalia, Neos, and Volotea?”
Ok but…aren’t they eventually going to have to deal with the issue of providing their own feeder traffic from within Germany itself? As is it, they don’t have that large of a flight network within Germany, just a handful of routes from FRA to some, not all, of their bases in Germany.
FRA has a mainline station and DB are well experienced in partnering with multiple airlines and selling through tickets. They already work with Condor (in addition to LH and even the likes of MIAT Mongolian) so the domestic feed is taken care of.
Agreed with Aaron. I’ll be flying them again for ~$2.2K R/T CUN-FRA next month. The feeder options to MXP, BRU, CDG that I’ve taken in the past for a few hundred dollars or less adder are now gone. They have replaced their own metal for some routes but now that’s much more expensive than previous. They’re going to have to figure out how to have a feeder network in Europe and then join an alliance – I think OneWorld makes the most sense – to make this work long term. I still think their business class product on the A330 is equal to or better than most competitors and great to credit to AS.
No clue about flights to or from the former Nazi Germany but I will say those are cool looking planes.
As ever, you didn’t need to go beyond the first two words of your post which we all already know but it’s nice of you to remind us. The rest of your effluent was unnecessary.
Good to hear from the EuroTrash, as always!
Did you Thank America again today for saving your coward asses in WW2?
It must be sad for you now that your wife will not f*ck you anymore, neither will anyone else. Eucuch!
Is the problem that Germany is a “tough market,” or is Germany a tough market because of the government’s protectionist policies enacted to protect Lufthansa? Germany is a huge market, with legitimate domestic need and demand. German’s have plenty of money to spend on travel, good geography, and lots of inbound tourism and business.
It really seems like they should have a second airline
The people working for Virgin Atlantic, some of whom are EXTREMELY THICK (many of them, including managers, have told me extremely incoherent things- my written communications with the airline have, on more than one occasion, been not just incoherent but contradictory and sometimes absurd) manage to maintain interline agreements selling tickets for European connections not just on SAS and AFKL but even on Aegean, BA (!) and a few others. The pricing can be very competitive indeed – I’ve seen ex-LIS tickets being sold cheaper than the same direct flight from LHR on its own.
I’m sure that Condor can come to similar arrangements with multiple other airlines. In terms of strategy, I think that linking up with LOT would be the best move. I don’t know whether they’d be able to offer connections on A3 metal because these are codeshared with LH, but there’s also Skyexpress for flights to Greece from FRA and a few other German airports.
I think joining oneworld would be foolish, they’re a small airline which will be very much a second tier member such as RJ and AT. I think they’re better off staying out of alliances and just forming bilateral partnerships with a bunch of airlines, including regionals outside of Europe (e.g. Bangkok Airways, Air Senegal) to provide connectivity to German passengers wanting to fly beyond the mainstream tourist destinations and grab a bit of VFR traffic while they’re at it.
For Germany there’s a very simple solution to this called Deutsche Bahn, excellent services to the station within Frankfurt Airport offering easy connections.
This of course is yet another way in which Lufthansa is attempting to bully other European Airlines as it grows in size. Their utter failure to cooperate with SAS forced SAS to choose Skyteam instead of staying in Star Alliance. They sideline Turkish who they see as a competitor as Turkish have freedom of the EU skies. European airlines are meant to simply be feeders to Lufthansa not competitors.
Hopefully the European Commission will stop any further expansion particularly regarding TAP.
I’m almost beginning to wonder if we need a new alliance in Europe including TAP, Turkish and Aegean as well as Croatia and perhaps LOT and Air Baltic to counter the Lufthansa bullying.
Oh Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.
Why not be more concerned about all the terrorists you let in your open borders?
Or maybe you are fine with your daughter taking some Arabic c#ck.