Eurowings
 

Just read the press release about Eurowings starting a new low-cost scheduled carrier based at Cologne using 5 A319s currently used for charter. The carrier will be called "Germanwings" and will eventually serve 10-20 European destinations using a low-cost/low-fare business model.

Hmmmm - sounds familiar. I know that Virgin Express is also opening a low-fare base at Cologne using 737-300/400 aircraft. I also believe that Germania is striking a deal with Hapag Lloyd (not certain of that) to begin a low-cost venture using a lot of 737NG aircraft. Easyjet may buy Deutsche BA and expand its low-fare model throughout Germany (and elsewhere). Meanwhile Ryanair is bolstering Hahn outside of Frankfurt with its ubiquitous 737-800s. Add to these airlines all of the regular German charter carriers like Air Berlin, LTU and Condor flying scheduled service to holiday destinations like Palma and Antalya and you have a lot of low-cost/low-fare flights...

Sounds like a beneficial trend for the travelers - but difficult competition ahead for a lot of Euro carriers... I know Lufthansa has a sizable stake in Eurowings/Germanwings, but this low-fare pressure can't be good on margins (excluding long-haul)...

Cheers

Lavdumperer,

quite amazing: if aviation news break - you have ´em first.

Your information is quite correct though.

My personal opinion:

Lufthansa needed to do something about the increasing low cost competition in Germany (DBA, Ryanair, Germania...)

Using Eurowings as "their" lowcost airline makes a lot of sense. Much lower cost structure then LHmainline/Condor/Cargo and even CityLine. LH owns 24.9 % of EW with an option for another 24,9%.

EW itself is actually two companies: Eurowings "mainline", operating scheduled regional services with ATR´s and BAE146 and Eurowings Flug, operating 5 A319 on behaf of var. tour operators to dif. holiday dest.. Since the charter biz. is somewhat slow for the indepentent airlines like EW and Germania, this is a low risk move for LH/EW to do.

Generally, Condor/Thomas Cook, and Hapag Lloyd are in pretty good shape, backed up by very large tour operators.

Gemania is also suffering from the mentioned slowdown in charter business and is therefore offering a couple domestic low routes cost, but remains a niche player.

DBA´s new low cost model is doing pretty well. Passenger numbers have incrased by 14% compared to last year and easyJet has just now finally signed the option to aquire DBA within the next 12 months.

Ryanair is not very popular amongst business travelers in Germany I believe and may find the german market to be more dificult then they thought it might be.

As for Virgin Express, I am unsure. If easyJet does buy DBA in the not to distant future, invests in more aircraft and routes, it will be hard for Virgin to keep up. DBA is allready flying 3 mio pax/year.

Let´s not mix up scheduled and charter airlines in the whole discussion though:

The traditional charter airlines (Hapag Lloyd, Aerolloyd, Air Berlin...) make most of their money, selling capacity to tour operators who in turn sell complete vacation packages to the consumer. They do sell seats themselves, too, but that´s not their main business.

So with the exception of people who might have a house in Mallorca and have always flown with Air Berlin and might now be able to fly on a low cost carrier, it´s mainly two different groups of people these airlines target.

So I think, in the long run there should be room for Lufthansa, aswell as Easy, Ryan and maybe Virgin, and the traditional charter carriers.

I do believe only two big LCA´s bill be dominating europe in a few years time, though

Lufthansa made a 600 million euros loss in the last financial year. A 25% stake in a low cost with 5 A319's is not going to balance out the books.

With UAL about to file for bankrupcy appartently, BMi transferring its 737's to low cost BMibaby. the future of the STAR alliance is not looking good.

To be fair on the journalists who are often maligned on this forum, this news was officially confirmed in at least two major aviation publications several hours earlier (it was announced during the morning) and, in any case, has also been pretty common knowledge for the past couple of weeks thanks to other news reports.

733 Drvier,

You are correct - the charter and low-fare markets are different markets in terms of groups of passengers. I was merely stating that travelers, in general, will have more choices in the future - they can either book via travel agent and fly on a package that includes flying Condor/Air Berlin or they can fly "Germanwings" to Palma a la carte.

The fact is that the low-fare market is growing at a much faster pace than the IT market, therefore, it makes sense to reallocate some potentially idle aircraft to a joint-venture that includes a lot of cash and marketing muscle. Germania is a prime example.

I do find the entire "Low-fare" revolution to be quite interesting with a number of new players popping-up. Have you seen the pictures of that new Swedish operator called "goodjet" that uses A320s out of a number of Scandinavian airports?

With all of the new low-cost carriers sporting brand new 737-700/800s and Airbus A320s (combined with the new flock of regional jets) the European airspace will soon be buzzing with new call-signs and filled to near capacity! You won't be hearing many "Speedbird" callsigns as much anymore...

733 Driver, I know you fly for DBA - I hope that easyJet does, in fact, acquire DBA and give you a chance to fly with one of the eventual winners...


Cheers

Makes me wonder about EI... has a bunch of 734 and 735 aircraft with ****** all resale value, 319s on order... a tie-up with someone continental to set up an EU LCC [Italy maybe? Austria?] operating some of the 73s would help migrate EI proper to an all-Airbus fleet.

With the long range routes it now plans [VIE, the Sun spots etc], an Airbus with winglets and higher cruise speed [30kts?] would be more suitable than a 734/5 best suited to quick turnaround ops?

German Wings to London?
 

The planned schedule of the new German Low Cost Airline based in Cologne, German Wings is mentioned in the current issue of Touristik Report.

Ankara – once daily
Barcelona – once daily
Berlin TXL – four times daily
Istanbul – once daily
London – three times daily
Madrid – once daily
Malaga once daily
Manchester – twice daily
Milan – twice daily
Nice – once daily
Rome – once daily
Thessaloniki – once daily
Zurich – twice daily

Any idea which London airport it will be?

EuroWings once served an airport in Essex, but I guess it depends upon who has the slots?

Virgin Express have new enemy especially adding Cologne to thier base list!

Gut feeling:-
1. Gatwick
2. Stansted
3. Luton

However, TBI, the operators of Luton are promising more 'good news' following the Baby base at Cardiff!

Low cost means just that, so the actual airport matters very little, I do hope they come to Luton, Charlie the Cologne bear is a good mate of mine!

bmibaby/germanwings make agreement
 

bmibaby are really in the mood for making friends!

It seems no-frills airline germanwings is completing a cooperation agreement with bmibaby, an source said on Wednesday.

The airlines, which are both affiliated with Lufthansa, will co-operate on jointly marketing cheap flights, but have no plans to merge, allegedly

germanwings has issued an invitation to a news conference on Friday, at which bmibaby MD Tony Davis will be present.

baby is a unit of bmi, in which Lufthansa has a 30 percent stake, and germanwings a unit of Eurowings, in which Lufthansa controls about 25 percent.

Any other airlines wishing to make friends with us, please form an orderly queue down Park Lane, Castle Donington.
:uhoh:

I think that the potential for a co-operation, or maybe even a merger between bmibaby & germanwings would be hugely benefitial for all of the airline's involved, and passengers also.

If you look at how germanwings has grown over the last two years, it has been incredibly successful. They haven't dropped any of the routes they've launched from Koeln whilst still in competition with HLX (like baby's been with Go/Easy), which they've done with a modern fleet of A319s. germanwings offers a varied route structure to all sorts of places across both Eastern & Western Europe, a varied & stable route structure and a modern fleet would definately benefit bmibaby.

Finally, for the airlines involved it would create a low fares airline from the Star Alliance, which would have much more bite than two smaller low fares airlines against Ryanair & EasyJet.

Well It definately looks like bmibaby and Germanwings are definately co-operating. Theres a link to the Germanwings website on the bmibaby site booking engine. Also theres a press release on the Germanwings website. Nothing on the bmibaby site though.

'Germanwings and bmibaby announce new co-operation'

Together the airlines cover the two most important markets in Europe

BERLIN – New no-frills co-operation. At the start of the International Tourism Fair (ITB) in Berlin on Friday, Germanwings announced that it will in future be co-operating with the British no-frills carrier bmibaby to develop sales opportunities for both airlines. According to Friedrich-Wilhelm Weitholz, Chairman of the Board at Germanwings' parent company Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG, “Both airlines have high standards when it comes to safety, reliability and quality. bmibaby is the subsidiary of bmi and Germanwings the subsidiary of Eurowings.”
“No other German no-frills airline”, said Germanwings' Managing Director, Dr. Joachim Klein “offers its customers a network as extensive as that available through this co-operation”. In Great Britain, bmibaby operates a European network of 58 routes from its bases at Nottingham East Midlands, Teesside, Manchester, Cardiff and London-Gatwick airports. In Germany, Germanwings operates a total of 39 flight routes from Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart. Together our range of flights covers both of the largest tourism markets in Europe.”

Tony Davis, bmibaby’s Managing Director commented: “With this co-operation both airlines are strengthening their sales presence in the destinations that we both operate to: Spain, France, Great Britain and the Czech Republic. On the homepages of both Germanwings and bmibaby selected routes of the other partner airline will be listed and customers will automatically be forwarded to the relevant partner's website for their actual booking. This will give both airlines the opportunity to offer even more destinations through their respective websites. In addition, we will be working with Germanwings to explore other areas of opportunity to both improve sales and performance”.

“The low-cost sector has revolutionised our entire industry in the past months and it is hard to imagine the travel industry without it today” according to Friedrich-Wilhelm Weitholz. “The sector has come out of its niche and is growing much faster than the traditional airlines. Industry experts estimate that this summer 20 percent of flight movements in Europe will be carried out by no-frills airlines.” The Eurowings Chairman of the Board went on to explain: “The different business systems are gradually converging and the division between no-frills airlines and charter airlines is becoming blurred. Network carriers are offering flights at very low prices. The established airlines as well as the low-cost carriers are all differentiating themselves more and more through their range of prices and services.” In this market situation Germanwings has decided to co-operate with other airlines who also offer a high quality, safe and reliable product.

Germanwings can look back on a relatively short but nonetheless extremely successful history with 3.8 million tickets booked just over 15 months after its launch in Cologne/Bonn. The range of flights has been extended substantially at the start of each new flight schedule; the fleet has grown from five to now twelve aircraft at the start of the summer schedule in March; the airline is well-known to more than 99 percent of the important target group of business travellers; even the percentage of foreign passengers travelling to Cologne and Stuttgart from Germanwings' destinations has increased steadily and now lies above 20 percent. Germanwings has signed contracts on special company rates with more than 300 companies and a close co-operation with the German tour operators Neckermann Städtereisen and FlyLoCo, amongst others, already exists.

The range of destinations flown to is also continually growing. In the summer timetable 2004 Germanwings will be flying to eight new destinations from Cologne/Bonn alone, making a total of 30 attractive cities on offer from Cologne/Bonn from 28th March 2004 onwards: flights to Dublin have already been operating since 29th February - further destinations are Munich and Faro. Parallel to the EU's expansion eastwards, Warsaw has been introduced as a destination for leisure and business travellers alike. Germanwings is also extending its network into Northern Europe considerably with the Scandinavian capitals Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm. Two additional daily flight pairs to London's centrally located Gatwick Airport are also new. These will operate at morning and evening times, making them equally attractive to business and leisure travellers.

The airline's website has developed just as successfully as the airline itself: www.germanwings.com is listed as the most visited travel portal in almost all relevant rankings and has become the biggest travel agency in Germany with a complete range of flights, hotels, rental cars and event tickets. With its “Crazy Nights”, countless competitions and specials the website has become a portal for bargain hunters. By introducing mobile booking using WAP technology in co-operation with T-Mobile, Germanwings is progressing as the leader in innovation within the airline industry when it comes to online marketing and sales. What is more, Germanwings also manages to actively market its website.

Berlin, 12th March 2004

This is excellent news for bmibaby to be working with an airline that has a modern fleet, excellent route network & product, and is generally regarded as one of the more professional in Europe.

I hope Tony & his team do look at the structure and operation of germanwings and try to implement some of their ideas over here.

I had the pleasure of an STN/CGN flight last year, and everything from the aircraft's livery, to the uniforms and cabin seemed so smart and the onboard service was the best I've experienced on any low-cost airline. I rarely hear that being said about us at 'baby.

It would be nice to see germanwings, and maybe even snowflake over here at NEMA!

Funny....
 

Today, Air Berlin has asked other German low-cost carriers to co-operate (with Air Berlin) to combat the British and Irish low-cost carriers. I've a feeling they are feeling the chill wind of competition, not a force often encountered in those parts....

And I do like the quote (above) that Germanwings are operating into London's
centrally located Gatwick Airport!! I wonder where that is - the Gatwick I know is on the same side of London as Baghdad, and equally as inaccessible from this part of England.

Wow... Low cost airlines co-operating. Next they'll be offering through checkin, seamless service, common branding... Maybe even an alliance := Seeing as they'll offer something less than Star Alliance, maybe Blackhole Alliance, or Meteorite Alliance...

Whats the benefit in aligning themselves.

* No connecting passengers
* No Advertising benefits (none - different brands)
* No cost reductions (very little joint airport operations)

Why would a passenger in EMA be interested in a CGN - IST route?

WW seems to be losing the low cost concept and are becoming a full service carrier again - I agree - next will be interline agreements, then FFP benefits... No doubt LH and SK will be bashing the bishop in EMA to close his little folly - If LH and SK are no longer predatory why should BD?

Interesting how ALL of WW's bases are close to or at EZY bases... EMA CWL (BRS) MAN (LPL) MME (NCL) LGW (LGW).

Copenhagen

and don't forget they were only formed in the first place when go announced that they were setting up a base at EMA.

Having had a friend working the ATP's into EMA for CityJet after BD acted all predatory on them I was not surprised how stupid Mr Bishop can be over his airport. I expected this reaction


No airline has ever survived at EMA, except BD... how times have chanegd, and now BD is the weakest link. What goes around comes around..... Now its BD's problem...

Germanwings Vs easyJet price war!
 

Germanwings vows to ‘kick out’ easyJet!

Germany looks set for a fares war after budget carrier Germanwings unveiled a £26 return fare on the Cologne-Gatwick route, undercutting easyJet's standard fare of £40.
Germany looks set for a fares war after budget carrier Germanwings unveiled a £26 return fare on the Cologne-Gatwick route, undercutting easyJet's standard fare of £40.

Germanwings begins operating the route later this week. Its deputy managing director of marketing, Andreas Bierwirth, identified easyJet as its main rival, saying: 'We will fight them route for route...We will kick them out by beating them on every route where we compete.'

But a spokesman for easyJet told today's Times: 'Are we scared? No. [Germanwings] will learn soon enough that the way to make money is not to pick a fight by competing on our routes.'

Until recently, Germany was underserved by low cost carriers. However, following expansion by easyJet and Ryanair and the emergence of a number of German operators over the past two years, the market is now considered overcrowded.

Michael O'Leary, Ryanair chief executive, predicted last week that at least one European budget airline would close by the end of 2004, following a 'ferocious' price war this autumn.
http://whipsnade.co.uk/picturelibrar...r_120_wide.jpg

The problem that German wWngs have in the UK is that they are virtually unknown by consumers and they have no critical mass. Easy jet on the other hand certainly have critical mass in the UK and they will soon have it in Gemany, because of their developments in Berlin Dortmund and to Cologne. They also serve MUC.

Thr DBA example should be a salutary lesson to anyone LCC wantiing to serve the UK on a small scale. Thery opersted LGW-TXL for a few months and had to abandon it.

It looks like a one horse race to me. Easy jet's costs are lower than German Wings and their marketing is far more effective.
Any bets?

The answer i think is for germanwings, Snowflake and bmibaby to join forming star low cost or something like that, then they would be a well known airline in Scandanvia, UK and Germany + then abroad from those countries if this happened they would have a fleet of:

Gemanwings - 8 ish
Bmibaby - 14 ish
Snowflake - 6 ish

TOTAL = 28 aircraft.

This would provide a fairly sizeable operation in all three markets which wouldnt be the best thing at just that part 2 of improving germanwings and these other star alliance low costs is then expanding between the bases and further out opening a new base in each country and therefore increasing there fleet to about 40-50 aircraft all by the end of the summer 2004!.

Thats what i think they should do, they would be number three then low cost carrier in europe, fairly stable as well.

German Wings will always be a small player. With the name German Wings all that you can hope for is routes from germany to XXX, never Paris to Barcelona or say French domestics. Which Frenchman would travel with German Wings on French domestics say?

60 years is not a long time in history! Like it or not the "German" in their name will let them down! :}

Whereas "easyJet" does not have a regional name so people aren't put off by the name (unless they've seen the tv series). Therefore eJ can build up critical mass in other markets to subsidise a fight with German Wings.

However I think LH have a share in GW as it is/was part of Eurowings which were owned by LH. Be interesting to see if LH start subsidising them.

I remember when "go" was operating STN-MUC Lufthansa contracted in bmi's A321 to compete at rock bottom prices on the STN-MUC route. Great for consumers but not for the company.

I heard arumour that Heinz Rudolf Woehrl was the head of German Wings. Can anyone confirm this? By proffesion he is a shirt maker and certainly used to have highly personal marketing ideas when he owned NFD.

Scottie, what about Air Berlin? You might have thought that they would only operate flights to and from Berlin but they operate flights out of Stansted to various destinations in Spain. I'm not sure whether they have any aircraft based at Stansted.

James -

There is one daily flight STN-PMI. It was started up out of anger at EZY muscling in on their base at Berlin. (What a way to run an airline!!).
I don't know how it's doing.

@colegate
 

Woehrl is not and has never been the head of Germanwings. Nevertheless he is the owner of 'Deutsche BA' which he bought from BA for the symbolic price of 1 €.

Eurowings: 19 a/c will be parked this summer
 

Lufthansa's feeder Germanwings will store 19 aircraft this summer. All it's CRJ 200 plus two CRJ 700. Lufthansa claims small RJs don't work anymore as high yield business travel declined too much.

Eurowings legt 19 Flugzeuge still - FLUG REVUE

Better get ATR's back...

That's a bit like Air Berlin is doing with all those LGW Q400s.

Good luck to everybody at EW.Impacts are gettig closer now to my company...:bored:
P.S:
Our pax numbers today could have been flown by a 35 seater...makes "really" more sense to put larger aircraft on our routes:\

Eurowings to put half of the fleet out of service
 

German news Tagesschau is reporting that Eurowings is planning to shut down half of the fleet.
With start of the summer schedule on 28. March 2010 all of the17 CRJ200 and 2 CRJ700 will be removed from the fleet.

Link to the news:Eurowings legt die halbe Flotte still

CR2's
 

I remember an article last year saying that LH were getting rid
of all 24 CR2's on their flights and 12 CR7's.

I assume that this press release is the Eurowings part of the cull and the rest will be CityLine?

In theory (although probably not in pratice) BHX should see it's last CR2
flight from Dusseldorf on Friday. The frequency then drops from four
daily in the week to three with a mix of CR7's and CR9's until the summer
schedule when it becomes all CR9's.

Pete

They're replacing CRJ200s with new CRJ900s. However, there will be job losses, sadly.

As I vividly recall: In flight service was practically zero; and no soap in the lav: 9.10.09, FRA-AMS, Bae-146, D-AQUA. :eek:

You should have reported that right on the spot, GlueBall! I'm sure they would have shut down the operation immediately and completely. So now they made a wrong decision and continue to operate a few planes, leaving you with the risk of being trapped in lavatory with NO SOAP! Damned! :ugh:

I’m sure the employees have learned their lesson and – with the next company – take care and bring soap from home…..

But will this help to avoid being screwed by a mother-company like in this case? Never bend for soap, so to say… :=

Like....der! No soap in the lav! It's in the MEL. No more than two sectors allowable.

Well, Kapitän Frosch, the larger issue concerns the cabin crew, who are serving food and beverage, not being able to wash their hands with soap. Think about it. :rolleyes:

With LH gradually transferring services operated by Eurowings to Germanwings, how is this going to affect the future of Eurowings?

The CWL-DUS route is due to start next month op'd by Eurowings, will this be affected ?

LH is not transferring from Eurowings to Germanwings - LH branded flights are being transferred to Germanwings. The subtle difference is that Eurowings will fly for Germanwings, but under the Germanwings brand (therefore 4U operations will include the EW CR900s).

Flights from DUS will not be switched over to 4U until somewhen in 2014.