Lufthansa flying high after 25 years at Birmingham EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01hrs

**** EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01HRS 1 APRIL 2011 **** 1 April 2011 Lufthansa flying high after 25 years at Birmingham Over 33 per cent increase in Birmingham passengers in early 2011 Lufthansa is celebrating 25 years of flights from Birmingham today (1st April) by reaching new heights with passenger figures for early 2011 showing 33.6 per cent growth compared with the same period last year. The figures, for services to Lufthansa’s connecting hubs at Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf, were released by Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa’s General Manager in UK, when she visited Birmingham to join in the silver anniversary celebrations. “This level of increase in passenger numbers has been almost unheard of in recent years”, says Marianne Sammann. “It proves once again that the majority of air travellers want Lufthansa’s reliable, full service offering. Our product provides passengers with their seat, hold & cabin baggage allowances, in flight food & drink, the ability to check-in on line, from their mobile phone or at the airport and all taxes & charges for one all inclusive fare with no hidden extras. This enables Lufthansa to maintain its position as one of the leading ‘full service’ carriers at Birmingham Airport.” “On 1st April 1986 Lufthansa came to Birmingham offering 13 flights a week with a daily flight to Frankfurt operated with a Boeing 737 aircraft and a six days a week service to Düsseldorf using a 28 seat Embraer 120 Brasilia aircraft. Today we have five times as many flights and we are using bigger aircraft. “More than half of the passengers flying with Lufthansa from Birmingham are continuing to take advantage of our quick and easy onward connections. Our Birmingham figures for the first two months of this year are showing an almost 100 per cent increase to the Middle East, 36 per cent increase to Africa, 29.3 per cent increase to South America and a 38 per cent increase on connections within Europe. The most popular onward destination with our Birmingham passengers is Prague with Vienna, Berlin, Delhi, Mumbai, Budapest, Graz, Milan, Barcelona, Stockholm and Sofia all featuring in the top 20 most popular connections.“ Lufthansa’s summer timetable for 2011 offers Birmingham passengers a choice of 65 flights a week (28 to Frankfurt, 19 to Munich and 18 to Düsseldorf) with onward connections to 211 destinations in 84 countries in the Lufthansa network and hundreds more available through other airlines within the Lufthansa Airlines Group (Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, bmi, Brussels Airlines and SWISS) as well as other Star Alliance partner airlines. For further press information contact: Aage Duenhaupt / Gudrun Gorner Dave Sanders Lufthansa German Airlines Dave Sanders & Associates Ltd Tel: + 44 20 8750 3415 Tel/Fax: 01257 278767 Fax: + 44 20 8759 1987 Email: http://media.lufthansa.com lhmedia@davesandersassociates.com