Art Second Cityline: New Lufthansa airline to get 40 planes

It was already leaked: In an effort to reduce staffing costs in the cockpit, Lufthansa is working on setting up a new airline. It is intended for short- and medium-haul traffic to hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Federation The Cockpit and UFO Association has already criticized the German aviation group’s plans.,

Now Lufthansa has expressed itself for the first time. CEO Carsten Spohr said at the annual press conference on Thursday (March 3) that the new airline — “I’ll call it Second City Line” — should begin operations next spring. It serves many purposes. On one hand, 250 Germanwings captains will be accommodated there.

fight against cost pressure

“Second, 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 provide Cityline employees with a perspective,” Spohr says. Third, you have to combat cost pressure at the Frankfurt and Munich hubs and “become cheaper overall” by changing your own group fleet mix in favor of “airlines with good unit cost”.

Spohr also commented on the target size. The Lufthansa boss stated that with 250 captains, the Lufthansa Cityline could be used as a model for the size of the new subsidiary. “That would bring us up to 40 planes.” In the first phase, however, this cannot be done, and the cockpit staff may even move to the main airline Lufthansa at a certain seniority.

No separation of short and long distance

“In terms of collective bargaining, the new airline will be exactly where Cityline is today,” Spohr said. “We want to enforce the Cityline Collective Agreements. The peers who switched from Germanwings retain their Germanwings status.

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