After recently announcing plans to discontinue longhaul routes on Eurowings, now Lufthansa is adding four new Eurowings routes to the United States. It’s a sign that Lufthansa doesn’t know what to do with its underperforming budget unit.
Next spring, Eurowings will launch four new routes:
- Munich to Las Vegas
- Begins April 7, 2020
- 2X per week
- Munich to Orlando dep 9:10AM arr 1:55PM
- Orlando to Munich dep 3:45PM arr 7:20AM+1 day
- Munich to Orlando
- 3X per week
- Begins April 7, 2020
- Munich to Orlando dep 9:10AM arr 1:55PM
- Orlando to Munich dep 3:45PM arr 7:20AM+1 day
- Frankfurt to Phoenix
- Begins April 29, 2020
- 5X per week
- Frankfurt to Phoenix dep 2:05PM arr 5:05PM
- Phoenix to Frankfurt dep 6:55PM arr 3:05PM+1 day
- Frankfurt to Anchorage
- Begins June 01, 2020
- 3X per week
- Frankfurt to Anchorage dep 10:30AM arr 11:55AM
- Anchorage to Frankfurt dep 1:55PM arr 10:45AM+1 day
This marks a divergent strategy from Eurowings’ new business plan only five weeks ago. In late June, Lufthansa announced it would re-direct its Eurowings operation away from Frankfurt and Munich and focus exclusively on short-haul flights. It also planned to standardize its fleet to Airbus A320 jets, which it hoped would bring the division to profitability by 2021.
This announcement represents a total abandonment of that policy. And policy itself marked another 180º turn from Lufthansa’s pre-June plan to fold Brussels Airlines into Eurowings’ operation, creating a larger carrier with both short-haul and longhaul service.
A Questionable Road for Eurowings
It’s clear that Lufthansa doesn’t know what to do with Eurowings. I actually think it’s okay for Lufthansa to admit it, just as Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith does not really know how to address the climate issue. Trying different strategies and seeing what sticks does demonstrate a lack of vision, but it is a pragmatic approach that makes more sense than totally throwing in the towel in a increasingly-hostile domestic and European market.
> Read More: Lufthansa, Our Guardian Of The Environment And Living Wage…
> Read More: Why Is Lufthansa Losing Money?
The addition of “real” business class seats (pictured above, the same as you’ll find on Lufthansa) is an important step to standardize the premium product. Even though the route structure is skewed toward leisure routes, the use of lie-flat seats does give Eurowings a change to differentiate itself form other budget carriers and command a premium in those fares.
Other Lufthansa Expansion
Lufthansa will also add three longhaul flights from Munich onboard mainline aircraft:
- Bangalore
- Begins March 31, 2020
- 5X per week
- Munich to Bangalore dep 11:55AM arr 12:05AM+1 day
- Bangalore to Munich dep 1:45AM arr 7:30AM
- Detroit
- Begins May 4, 2020
- 5X per week
- Munich to Detroit dep 12:40PM arr 3:45PM
- Detroit to Munich dep 5:35PM arr 7:45AM+1 day
- Seattle
- Begins June 1, 2020
- 6X per week
- Munich to Seattle dep 3:30PM arr 4:55PM
- Seattle to Munich dep 6:45PM arr 1:50PM+1 day
All three of these new services will complement existing service from Frankfurt.
CONCLUSION
As Lufthansa tries to figure out what to do with its Eurowings, U.S. and European consumers will benefit from increased services to four new U.S. cites. From Frankfurt or Munich, the connecting possibilities are (nearly) limitless.
What do you think about the latest Eurowings strategy?
I disagreed back when this was first posted about Eurowings and I still disagree now. Transferring commercial responsibility does not mean Eurowings will no longer operate longhaul, at least not near-mid term. It means Lufthansa itself will take those flights under their care but Eurowings can still operate them. I read this from that slide a few weeks back and I still read it this way. Not sure if this means they don’t know what to do with them or if it means their presentation was just not clear enough for us outsiders?
Must be a strain on the Eurowings employees; not knowing from month to month the future of their employer and whether they’re going to have their jobs or not.
Great info, wish the MUC-LAS option was available when I lived there the last 2.5 years. We almost missed our connecting flight on Condor from FRA-LAS when our Lufthansa MUC-FRA flight was delayed. I was the guy who kinda very gentle had to say “excuse me, my flight is leaving in 10 min without me if I don’t make it through immigration” through throngs of people and then having to run through terminal C in FRA is no fun. We made our flight though that’s all that matters.
One niggle though, it looks like you copy/pasted the same flight info for MUC-LAS and MUC-MCO. Just a helpful set of eyes.