Lufthansa will soon be represented at Southampton airport thanks to a code-share arrangement with bmi regional.
From April 15 bmi regional, commuter airline, will launch 12 flights a week between Southampton and Munich. There will be two flights daily from Monday to Friday with one flight on Saturday and one flight on Sunday.
It is believed to be the first time that Southampton will have a scheduled link to a major hub in Germany. It already enjoys scheduled links to other major European hubs such as Amsterdam and Paris CDG.
The Munich hub will enable travellers both in the Southampton region and areas to the Southwest of London to access both Europe and the outside world.
But Munich itself is a destination in its own right and provides easy access to the rest of Bavaria and is located close to Austria. For business travellers it is a well-known base for financial companies, car manufacturing and so on.
Says bmi regional COO Jochen Schnadt, “We’re excited to be adding Southampton to our ever growing network and connecting it to our developing Munich hub.”
The airline will be operating the route with Embraer commuter jets (either 50-seater E145 or 37-seater E135) configured three across 2-1.
Publicity material currently released by bmi regional talks about the code-sharing with Lufthansa and the ability to access more than 200 worldwide destinations.
However, at the time of writing, bookings beyond Munich were unavailable for Southampton-originating travellers on bmi regional’s website. Also Lufthansa.com would not display the Southampton-Munich route at all. One would hope that both airlines’ websites will be updated in the days and weeks ahead.
Alex McWhirter
