Lufthansa_CityLine

Lufthansa CityLine

Lufthansa CityLine

Regional airline of Germany


Lufthansa CityLine GmbH is a German airline with its headquarters on the grounds of Munich Airport.[2][3] It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and maintains hubs at Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport,[4] from where it operates a dense domestic and European network as a member of Lufthansa Regional.

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History

A former Lufthansa CityLine Avro RJ85 wearing the airline's former livery, 2007.
A former Lufthansa CityLine Bombardier CRJ200 wearing a special livery, 2008.

Early years

The airline was founded as Ostfriesische Lufttaxi (OLT) in 1958 and became Ostfriesische Lufttransport (OLT) in 1970 - which existed until 2013 as a separate airline - in Emden. It was reorganised and renamed as DLT Luftverkehrsgesellschaft mbH on 1 October 1974 and began cooperation with Lufthansa in 1978 with short-range international routes.

By 1989, all operations were on behalf of Lufthansa. In March 1992, DLT became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and was renamed Lufthansa CityLine. Lufthansa CityLine employs 2,332 people, of whom 664 are cockpit crew, 849 cabin crew and 819 work in the technical and administrative areas as of 31 December 2011.[5]

Lufthansa placed an order on 17 April 2007 for 30 Embraer E190/E195 and 15 Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft to directly replace CityLine's fleet of BAe 146 and Avro RJ aircraft. The last Avro RJ85 took off from Cologne Bonn Airport on 27 August 2012 as LH1985.[6]

Development since 2014

In late 2014, parent company Lufthansa announced it would begin transferring eight of its Airbus A340-300 aircraft to CityLine. After reconfiguration to a high-density configuration, these aircraft would be owned by CityLine and operated by CityLine pilots but wet-leased back to Lufthansa and serviced by Lufthansa cabin crews starting in 2015 for use on leisure routes.[7] The first destinations to be served by the new Bombardier CRJ-700s which left CityLine's fleet by March 2015.[8]

In October 2017, a new labour agreement between Lufthansa and its pilot unions was reached. As part of this agreement, the wetlease operations of Lufthansa CityLine on behalf of Lufthansa, consisting of eight Airbus A340s, were gradually terminated.[9]

As part of Lufthansa's new corporate design introduced in early 2018, Lufthansa Regional aircraft operated by Lufthansa CityLine also received the new livery, with the Lufthansa Regional titles being removed from the fuselage and replaced by Lufthansa.

In August 2020, Lufthansa CityLine handed back six Airbus A340-300 longhaul aircraft it operated for parent Lufthansa as part of their revised leisure route strategy.[10] In spring 2022, the airline transferred their last two remaining Embraer 195 to Air Dolomiti.[11] In the same time, they were given operations of two Airbus A321P2F converted freighter aircraft on behalf of Lufthansa Cargo[12] as well as several Airbus A319-100 aircraft to be flown for Lufthansa mainline.[13] Additionally, Lufthansa announced in 2023 that they would relocate several of their A320neo to Lufthansa CityLine.[14]

Corporate affairs

The airline's corporate headquarters are at the Flight Operations Center (FOC) at Munich Airport.[2] In May 2013 it was announced that the management and administration offices of CityLine would be relocated from Cologne to Munich.[15][16] The move was completed as of September 2014.[2]

The airline was previously headquartered at Cologne Bonn Airport.[17] In 1998 the airline moved its offices to the security area of that airport; several of its departments however were in Munich. In 2009 the airline moved its head office into the former Cologne/Bonn Airport administrative building.[15]

Fleet

Lufthansa CityLine Bombardier CRJ900
A former Lufthansa CityLine Embraer 195 wearing an earlier livery
A former Lufthansa CityLine Airbus A340-300. Due to labor agreements, these A340s missed the small Lufthansa-titles which the Star Alliance-livery aircraft of parent Lufthansa do feature.

Current fleet

As of March 2024, the Lufthansa CityLine fleet consists of the following aircraft:[1]

More information Aircraft, In service ...

Historical fleet

Over the years, Lufthansa CityLine has operated the following aircraft types:[22][23][24]

More information Aircraft, Introduced ...

Accidents and incidents

  • On 6 January 1993, Lufthansa Flight 5634 from Bremen to Paris, which was carried out under the Lufthansa CityLine brand using a Contact Air Dash 8-300 (registered D-BEAT), hit the ground 1800 metres short of the runway of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, resulting in the death of four out of the 23 passengers on board. The four crew members survived. The accident occurred after the pilot had to abort the final approach to the airport because the runway had been closed due to the aircraft ahead, a Korean Air Boeing 747, suffering a blown tire upon landing.[25]
  • On 28 December 1999, a passenger on board Lufthansa Flight 5293 from Prague to Düsseldorf, which was operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ100 aircraft (registered D-ACJA), claimed to have a bomb on board and demanded the flight be diverted to the United Kingdom. The pilots convinced him to have a fuel stop at Düsseldorf Airport, where all passengers left the plane (many of them unaware of the hijacking attempt), and the perpetrator was arrested.[26]
  • On 5 July 2014, Lufthansa Flight 1360 from Frankfurt to Katowice, operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ700 aircraft (registered D-ACPJ), landed on an unopened and under construction runway at Katowice Airport. The pilots performed a normal approach from the East in good conditions and visibility before landing on the closed runway. No one was hurt, and the aircraft later made a technical flight to land on the correct runway. The Polish State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation made recommendations to add additional markings to the runway (in the form of red X shapes on the runway), and to modify the ATIS to include warnings about the closed runway. The CAT I ILS was disabled due to the construction, and the aircraft featured an older EGPWS that lacked a "Smart Landing" mode and high resolution map of the area which prevented it from informing the crew of the situation. During the approach, PAPI and threshold lights were set to maximum brightness. The incident is still being investigated by Polish authorities.[27]

References

General References

  1. "Lufthansa CityLine Fleet Details and History". www.planespotters.net. Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  2. "Contact". Lufthansacityline.com. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  3. "Flughafen München - FOC - Flight Operations Center". Munich-airport.de. Archived from the original on 13 May 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  4. "Route network". Lufthansacityline.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  5. "Directory: CLH official site". lufthansacityline.com. 24 January 2012. p. About us.
  6. "Lufthansa Plans Last CRJ700 Scheduled Service in late-March 2015". Airlineroute.net. 3 February 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  7. airliners.de 5 August 2020
  8. aerotelegraph.com (German) 1 February 2022
  9. "History". Lufthansa Cityline. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  10. Contact" (). Lufthansa CityLine. 5 May 2013. Retrieved on 7 January 2014. "Lufthansa CityLine GmbH Airport Köln/Bonn Waldstraße 247 51147 Cologne Germany " - Older address: "Heinrich-Steinmann-Straße 51 51147 Köln"
  11. airliners.de (German) 8 December 2022
  12. "Lufthansa Cargo deploys two Airbus A321s permanently converted into freighters" (Press release). Lufthansa Cargo. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  13. "Lufthansa takes delivery of first A321P2F aircraft". Aerotime Hub. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  14. "Lufthansa Cityline Fleet | Airfleets aviation". Airfleets.net. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  15. "AeroTransport Data Bank". Aerotransport.org. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  16. "Lufthansa CityLine - History". www.lufthansacityline.com.
  17. "STATE COMMISSION ON AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVESTIGATION : PRELIMINARY REPORT" (PDF). Mir.gov.pl. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 2 May 2015.

Notes

  1. Former DLT Fleet
  2. Operated By Cimber Air
  3. Operated By Contact Air

Media related to Lufthansa CityLine at Wikimedia Commons


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