The Lufthansa Group has confirmed that its forthcoming budget carrier serving routes within Germany and Europe will operate under the Germanwings branding.
The carrier announced plans to create a short-haul budget brand last month (see online news September 19), but at the time said that “The decision about the future brand name will only be made in the upcoming months”.
This decision has now been made, with the existing Germanwings brand being used for the new low-cost model serving point-to-point services on domestic German and European routes.
The move makes sense as the Germanwings brand has an established reputation as one of the better budget airlines in Europe.
The new business model will launch in January next year, but will not apply to point-to-point services operated through Frankfurt or Munich, which will remain under the Lufthansa brand.
The group said that the unified budget carrier would be “repositioned as a quality product - reasonably priced but not cheap - in the low-cost segment in an upgraded ‘new’ Germanwings”, adding that the carrier’s extended flight schedule and new brand identity will be “fine-tuned over the coming weeks” before being revealed in December 2012.
Up to 30 aircraft currently serving Lufthansa point-to-point routes will be transferred over to Germanwings in January.
The group also confirmed that its regional subsidiary Eurowings would continue, but going forward will operate on behalf of Germanwings.
For more information visit lufthansa.com, germanwings.com.
Report by Mark Caswell