Lufthansa City Airlines, a new low-cost airline, will make its first flight on June 26, focusing on connecting flights for its parent company from hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. According to Euronews, Bulgaria is among its destinations. The airline will start flights this month to Berlin, Bremen, Cologne Bonn, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Hanover. It will also initially operate routes to Bordeaux, Manchester, and Birmingham.
In 2025, more destinations will be added, including Paris (Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse-Blagnac, Lyon-Saint Exupery), Bilbao, Barcelona, Prague, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Krakow, Belgrade, and Sofia. Other expected routes for 2025 include Bucharest, Helsinki, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Oslo, Luxembourg, and Dublin.
Lufthansa CityLine and Lufthansa City Airlines, though similarly named, are separate subsidiaries of Lufthansa. The new airline aims to serve markets not covered by CityLine, reduce costs, and strengthen short-haul competitiveness. However, unions have expressed concerns that the subsidiary was created to circumvent contractual obligations for Lufthansa Group employees. The German pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) suspects it was a move to bypass labor agreements, while the Center for Aviation (CAPA) suggests the new airline helps Lufthansa implement restrictive terms in pilot contracts, thereby reducing labor costs and increasing flexibility.