Lufthansa City Airlines: What is the German flag carrier’s new airline and where will it fly?

Lufthansa City Airlines is bringing new short-haul flight routes to Germany this month.

The brand new Lufthansa City Airlines will take its first flight on 26 June, bringing new short- and medium-haul connections to Germany.

Bookings for the new airline are already open, focusing on connecting flights for Lufthansa from its main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.

Here’s where it will fly and how it could change air travel in Europe.

Where will Lufthansa City Airlines fly?

The new Lufthansa subsidiary’s debut flight will go from Munich in Germany to Birmingham in the UK.

Alongside the existing Lufthansa CityLine subsidiary, the new Lufthansa City will eventually serve domestic and European routes from its Munich and Frankfurt bases.

In 2024, domestic destinations will include Berlin, Bremen, Cologne Bonn, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Hannover.

Outside of Germany, the airline will initially fly to Bordeaux in France, and Manchester and Birmingham in the UK.

Further European flights are expected to be added down the line. In 2025, slated destinations include Paris Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse-Blagnac and Lyon-Saint Exupéry in France; Bilbao and Barcelona in Spain; Prague in Czechia; Ljubljana in Slovenia; Zagreb in Croatia; Krakow in Poland; Belgrade in Serbia; Sofia in Bulgaria; Bucharest in Romania; Helsinki in Finland; Gothenburg-Landvetter in Sweden; Oslo in Norway; Luxembourg; and Dublin in Ireland.

What’s the difference between Lufthansa CityLine and Lufthansa City?

Though similarly named, Lufthansa CityLine and Lufthansa City are separate subsidiaries of Germany’s flag carrier.

According to Lufthansa, the new airline will serve markets not covered by its predecessor, help reduce costs, and strengthen the company’s short-haul competitiveness.

But unions raised suspicions of the move when it was announced last year. German pilot union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) said the subsidiary was created to circumvent contractual obligations for employees in the Lufthansa Group, who were being encouraged to apply for roles at the new airline.

Similarly, the Centre for Aviation (CAPA) claimed Lufthansa City was “another new platform to help [the Lufthansa Group] around restrictive terms in pilot agreements, thereby lowering labour costs and increasing labour flexibility”.

Euronews Travel reached out to both unions about their current stance but they did not respond.