Lufthansa winter flights to 191 destinations in 78 countries

20 October 2009 Lufthansa winter flights to 191 destinations in 78 countries 40% more capacity on routes to Nigeria Lufthansa is further boosting its services to Africa and increasing the number of flights it operates to Nigeria from ten to 14 per week with the introduction of the winter timetable on 25 October 2009. UK passengers will be able to connect daily through Frankfurt for the six hour non-stop flight to the Nigerian capital Abuja, which is located in the centre of Nigeria. Lufthansa is also resuming services to Port Harcourt, and will operate onward flights from Abuja to the Nigerian port city four times a week. The other three flights a week will continue from Abuja to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea. Although Lufthansa is reducing the number of flights for the winter, in view of weaker demand, the airline has already confirmed the re-introduction of a seasonal service between Inverness, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, and Düsseldorf next summer and a new service from Munich to Tashkent from 28 March 2010. The three times a week service to the Uzbek capital will be operated by the Swiss carrier, PrivatAir using a Boeing 737-800, seating 24 passengers in Business Class and 84 in Economy Class providing the first direct connection from Lufthansa’s Munich hub to Central Asia. In the new winter timetable Lufthansa is offering a total of 12,406 weekly flights to 191 destinations in 78 countries - a decrease of 7.4 per cent – although the gradual withdrawal of smaller regional aircraft and the deployment of larger types, means the available seat capacity will remain stable in a year-on-year comparison. Overall, through fleet re-dimensioning, the capacity – measured in available seat kilometres - will increase marginally by 1.1 per cent, principally through the use of new aircraft in inter-continental traffic. The winter timetable 2009/2010 is valid for the period commencing Sunday, 25 October 2009 through to Saturday, 27 March 2010. “Our passengers are staying loyal to us because we are maintaining existing connections and not radically revising our route network”, says Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa General Manager UK & Ireland. “We are optimising the network so we can retain connection quality for our customers as well as keeping a presence in all traffic regions and only cancelling flight connections when alternatives are available to our passengers.” “Lufthansa is continuing to develop new, strategically important growth markets. Among its principal targets are West and Central Africa where we have doubled services from 11 to 21 flights weekly compared to last year.” Lufthansa customers have also been able to book new code-share connections from the beginning of October with cooperation partner JetBlue. The US carrier is operating flights under Lufthansa flight numbers from 11 November 2009 with seamless flight connections from New York or Boston to twelve US destinations and Puerto Rico. Additionally, seasonal services Hamburg–Innsbruck (Austria), Frankfurt–Cape Town (South Africa) and Dusseldorf–Miami (USA) will be resumed. Other airlines in the Lufthansa Group – Austrian Airlines, bmi, Brussels Airlines and SWISS – are also introducing their winter flight schedules on 25 October. Together, all five airlines are serving 254 destinations in 101 countries on four continents via their hubs at Brussels, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, London-Heathrow, Munich, Vienna and Zurich. They are also each augmenting their own services with an array of code-share fights with 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