The second art City Line: The new Lufthansa airline will receive 40 aircraft

It already leaked: In an effort to cut personnel costs in the cockpit, Lufthansa is creating a new airline. It is intended for short and medium term traffic to the hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. guilds The cockpit and flying plane association has already criticized the plans of the German aviation group.

Now Lufthansa has expressed itself for the first time. CEO Carsten Spohr said at his annual press conference on Thursday (March 3) that the new airline – “I call it sort of a city-second line” – should begin operations next spring. It serves multiple purposes. On the other hand, 250 commanders of the German wings will be housed there.

Fight cost pressures

“Secondly, we have a collective agreement with the Cockpit Association that will no longer allow Cityline to operate aircraft with more than 75 seats from 2026, so we are giving Cityline employees a point of view,” Spohr says. Third, you have to face cost pressures in Frankfurt and Munich and “get generally cheaper” by shifting your group’s fleet mix in favor of “carriers with fairly good unit costs”.

Spohr also commented on target volume. With 250 leaders, Lufthansa Cityline can be used as a model for the size of the new subsidiary, Lufthansa President said. That would lead us to 40 planes.” However, in the first step, this cannot be done, and cockpit employees can also switch to the main airline Lufthansa in a certain seniority.

There is no separation for short and long distances

“In terms of collective bargaining, the new airline will be exactly where City Line is today,” Spohr said. “We want to implement Cityline collective agreements. Colleagues who moved from Germanwings maintain their conditions at Germanwings.

The CEO denied that Lufthansa wants to separate the short- and mid-range business from its long-haul division with the new airline. “Of course, Lufthansa will continue to do both in the future, in the short and long term,” said Spohr.