Right now both Air France and Lufthansa operate many dozen of flights every week between their hubs at Paris CDG and Munich.
But more will follow, and this time the new services are to operate from Paris Orly.
Lufthansa was first off the block.
Before Christmas it announced a new twice daily service which would operate between Paris Orly and Munich from March 16 in the morning and in the evening.
As readers will know, Lufthansa has been developing its Munich hub at the expense of Frankfurt (traditionally its main hub) and there have been many new routes.
Lufthansa says its flights from Paris Orly will connect with long-haul services to North America, Japan and India in the morning along with Asia and Mexico in the evening.
Now Air France says it will enter the same route, with roughly the same corporate-friendly scheduling, from March 29.
The difference is that whereas Lufthansa has a strong hub at Munich, the same cannot be said for Air France at Orly.
Nevertheless Air France claims that its new Orly flights will provide travellers with more convenient connections when bound for Guyana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion and New York (note: New York is better served at CDG).
However whether travelling point-to-point or making a connection the timings suit the business market and Orly is more convenient for certain parts of Paris.
While better connections are good for the traveller, one wonders whether such tit-for-tat competition is right in this flight shame age?
I realise both carriers belong to rival alliances but that fact does not prohibit code-sharing which would reduce the number of flights on a route where there is already high-speed train service (albeit with 5.5 hours journey time).
