New Eurowings Low Cost Carrier by Lufthansa to launch in 2015

The supervisory board for Deutsche Lufthansa AG has given a green signal to the new “Wings” low-cost long haul service. The German airline will lease 7 Airbus A330-200s for operating the intercontinental flights. The low cost carrier (LCC) has not received a brand name yet. The LCC with its base at Cologne-Bonne Airport will fly to Florida, Indian Ocean and Southern Africa. The flight service will commence by end of the year 2015.

The airline will upgrade its regional Eurowings carrier to operate these routes under the joint venture company of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa – SunExpress which provides the cabin crew and cockpit. The two companies have signed a letter of intent.

The airline will commence operations with three A330-200 aircrafts with 310 seats and will expand up to seven aircrafts in the future. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lufthansa Group, Carsten Spohr commented that this new revised Eurowings brand is the company's response to the cut-throat competition of low cost airlines in Europe.

Lufthansa group will also transfer all of its routes that do not serve Munich and Frankfurt to its subsidiary Germanwings. The route transfer will be completed by January 2015. Initially, Eurowings and Germanwings will operate on their existing routes under the new concept.

The Eurowings fleet currently comprises of 23 Bombardier CRJ900 jets. The new operations will fly using up to 23 Airbus A320 aircrafts which will replace the existing fleet between February 2015 and March 2017. The group has ordered 10 new A320s to add to the Eurowings operations while 13 of them will be reassigned. The German airline will add more routes to Eurowings which will operate from its first base outside Germany, Basel Airport in Switzerland.