Lufthansa leaves the Frankfurt - Ekaterinburg flight unchanged

24.11.2010 — News

SVERDLOVSK REGION.

Lufthansa is not planning to make any changes in the route connecting Germany and the Sverdlovsk Region. The airplanes of the German airline company will come to Ekaterinburg from Frankfurt am Main as before.

As Aage Duenhaupt, Director in Lufthansa's corporate communication in Europe, informed "RusBusinessNews", the airline company turned down the proposal of the management of the Koltsovo airport in Ekaterinburg to replace Frankfurt with Munich, as the main hub of Lufthansa can offer passengers a larger number of destinations through connecting flights. The flight geography of Lufthansa will expand when the new runway is opened in the Frankfurt airport in 2011.

In 2010, Ekaterinburg secured a robust footing among the first three leaders out of eight Russian destinations of Lufthansa, yielding only to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Over January-October the German airline company carried more than 27 thousand passengers from Koltsovo to Frankfurt. Over ten months in 2010, 1.2 million passengers used Lufthansa flights between Russia and Germany.

In winter Lufthansa offers flights from Frankfurt am Main to Ekaterinburg three times a week. In the near future, А320 airbuses servicing the route will be equipped with new and more comfortable chairs. Besides, passengers will be offered more attractive prices for flights in Europe.

According to Aage Duenhaupt, over January-September of 2010, Lufthansa's operating earnings reached 612 million euro; by the end of the current year the earnings are expected to exceed 800 million euro, thus bringing dividends to the shareholders. At the same time, he expects that the earnings will be halved due to the reduced passenger flow from the USA and India as well as due to the payments for the four new А380 airbuses that were purchased in 2010.