Whatever happened to the "Lufthansa Express" concept?

What can I say, a very extensive reply which answered all of my questions.Thanks very much, best regards H

Yes you are right that Lufthansa operated also at least two A300-600´s with “Express”-stickers.

I don´t think that Lufthansa Express was a separately registered company but I know that Lufthansa hired crews separately and these employees were exclusively rostered only on “Lufthansa Express” flights. So flight attendants worked longer (like six to eight legs a day). I think that the general reorganisation of Lufthansa (until 1994 mainly state-owned) with new labour-contracts and generally new conditions reduced the costs considerably and “Lufthansa Express” was no longer really needed to reduce costs.
Lufthansa was in very bad shape in these times. The huge losses and high operating costs lead to order cancellations and the decision to streamline the fleet. So the A310-200 were phased out and replaced by the A321-100. The B737-fleet was also reduced to two models – the 737-300 and 737-500.
The B737-400 left the fleet in 1996 and the classic B737-200Adv. later in 1997.
The B737-200Adv. were replaced by A319´s.

Yes after the closure of Lufthansa Express the aircraft with “Express”-stickers were flying normally within Lufthansa.
So the aircraft were flying like other aircraft and the title “Express” was overdue.

After the 49% take-over of eurowings by Lufthansa the operations at eurowings were streamlined.

The charter-operations of eurowings (with five A319´s with 142 seats each) were abandoned and the A319´s went on to become the basic fleet for germanwings. eurowings is now marketed as “Lufthansa Regional”, mainly flying ATR´s, CRJ´s and BAe146´s.

In fact Lufthansa Regional is now the biggest user of the BAe146 and Avroliner(including the fleets of Lufthansa Cityline and Air Dolomiti) in Europe and after considering a replacement for these relatively fuel-thirsty aircraft they´ve decided to stick with these aircraft and renewed leases and took more arcraft.

germanwings is (in my opinion) not a “real” low-cost airline. germanwings is part of Lufthansa and Lufthansa uses germanwings indirectly and directly to compete against other airlines. The fleet of gemanwings is partly leased from Lufthansa and there are also crews that are in reality Lufthansa employees.

germanwings flies (or flew?) A320´s leased from Lufthansa and flying with Lufthansa configuration (CY150). This is “luxury” a real low-cost operator can not offer.

Without the assistance of Lufthansa the project germanwings would have been a failure.

The real chance for Lufthansa is that they can transfer some routes to germanwings – routes that don´t generate much yield.

And Lufthansa can use germanwings as a “weapon” for their own pilots! Lufthansa can claim that germanwings could take over much more routes of Lufthansa if the pilots of Lufthansa want to have more salaries.

germanwings is surely a good project to look for cost cuttings for Lufthansa itself. germanwings leased two Boeing 717´s from AeBal (SpanairLink) and this was influenced by Lufthansa because Lufthansa was really interested in the B717 as a replacement for the BAe146/Avro at Lufthansa Regional and as a possible replacement of the B737-500 (maybe transfered to a subsidiary to reduce the costs). Lufthansa is searching for a longer time for a replacement for their B737-300/-500 but right now there are no official plans and Lufthansa seems to be generally pleased with the B737-300 but not really pleased with the B737-500 simply because the B737-500 costs as much as the B737-500 but carries fewer passengers.

germanwings itself decided to stick with the A319 and will take over some examples of USAirways I think. Right know there are some aircraft leased from Lufthansa (Lufthansa reduced their A319-fleet from 20 to 14) and the hope for B717-fans to see “a huge order by Lufthansa Group” busted but the circumstances concerning the Boeing 717 is a differnt story…

Concerning Lufthansa Express I know that I have some broshures but I don´t know where 🙁

Let´s see…

Take care and thank you

Thanks for a great response!

I remember that the Lufthansa Express concept was the operation of 28 aircraft (B737 and A310 I think) on purely domestic services within Germany with operations starting in October 1992.

Would have been A300-600 as well, I flew on at least two A300s with the ‘Express’ titling in 1995-96.

Flight Crews were hired and some crews transfered from Lufthansa with lower salaries payed.
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All aircraft were operated independently from mainline Lufthansa and Lufthansa hoped to generate cost-savings through higher utilisation and lower paid crews.
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This did not come to fruition and Lufthansa Express was re-introduced into Lufthansa 1994 I think with all employees transfered to Lufthansa.

Did not know this. Was Lufthansa Express a separately registered company (seeing that the crews apparently were hired with new contracts)?

The suspension of this domestic project would explain why ‘Express’ aircraft were seen all over Europe later. I flew FRA-LHR-FRA with an Express A300 in 1996.

Later Lufthansa discussed another version of a low-cost subsidiary with the working-title “Lufthansa Lite”.

These plans were abandoned but through the take-over of eurowings Lufthansa took the A319´s of eurowings to form germanwings (using the name “German Wings” bought after the deminse of this MD-80-operator) to have their own low cost adventure.

So Eurowings does not have any A319s anymore? Did not know this either… Is Germanwings considered a success by Lufthansa management and the travel industry in Germany? I flew on Germanwings last week and was very satisfied, although it was an ex-LH A319 I was on.

Thanks a lot for your info IberiaMD-87! If you can dig out more info I’d be very grateful!

Grüßi

Hans J

I remember that the Lufthansa Express concept was the operation of 28 aircraft (B737 and A310 I think) on purely domestic services within Germany with operations starting in October 1992.

Flight Crews were hired and some crews transfered from Lufthansa with lower salaries payed.
There were two models from with flight attendants could choose from.
They were based in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin and were able to work “half-time” or “full-time”.
Onboard service was very much reduced but the “Gate Buffet” was retained.
All aircraft were operated independently from mainline Lufthansa and Lufthansa hoped to generate cost-savings through higher utilisation and lower paid crews.

This did not come to fruition and Lufthansa Express was re-introduced into Lufthansa 1994 I think with all employees transfered to Lufthansa.

Later Lufthansa discussed another version of a low-cost subsidiary with the working-title “Lufthansa Lite”.

These plans were abandoned but through the take-over of eurowings Lufthansa took the A319´s of eurowings to form germanwings (using the name “German Wings” bought after the deminse of this MD-80-operator) to have their own low cost adventure.

I will maybe look for more infos…
Thanks