Germanwings

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Defunct low-cost airline of Germany (1997–2020)

title: "Germanwings" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["defunct-airlines-of-germany", "airlines-established-in-2002", "airlines-disestablished-in-2020", "german-brands", "defunct-low-cost-airlines", "defunct-european-low-cost-airlines", "companies-based-in-cologne", "2002-establishments-in-germany", "lufthansa", "german-companies-disestablished-in-2020", "german-companies-established-in-2002", "airlines-disestablished-due-to-the-covid-19-pandemic"] description: "Defunct low-cost airline of Germany (1997–2020)" topic_path: "geography/germany" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Defunct low-cost airline of Germany (1997–2020) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox airline"]

FieldValue
airlineGermanwings
logoGermanwings logo.svg
logo_size250
fleet_size33
IATA4U
ICAOGWI
callsignGERMANWINGS
parentLufthansa Group
founded
(as a division of Eurowings)
commenced
(spin-off from Eurowings)
ceased
headquartersCologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
key_peopleExecutive Board: {{ubl
bases{{ubl
frequent_flyer{{ubl
website
::

| airline = Germanwings | logo = Germanwings logo.svg | logo_size = 250 | fleet_size = 33 | IATA = 4U | ICAO = GWI | callsign = GERMANWINGS | parent = Lufthansa Group | destinations = | company_slogan = | founded = (as a division of Eurowings) | commenced = (spin-off from Eurowings) | ceased = | headquarters = Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | key_people = Executive Board: {{ubl|class=nowrap | Michael Knitter | Francesco Sciortino }} | bases = {{ubl|class=nowrap | Berlin–Schönefeld | Berlin–Tegel | Cologne/Bonn | Dortmund | Hamburg | Hannover | Munich | Stuttgart}} | hubs = | focus_cities = | frequent_flyer = {{ubl|class=nowrap | Boomerang Club | Miles & More}} | lounge = | website = | aoc = | num_employees = | image =

Germanwings GmbH was a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, and Munich Airport; and further bases at Hannover Airport and Dortmund Airport.

Germanwings operated independently as Lufthansa's low-cost carrier until October 2015, when Lufthansa decided to fully transfer the brand identity of its low cost short haul-product to Eurowings. After 2016, Germanwings operated as a wet lease operator for its sister company Eurowings, with the Germanwings branding being phased out. The IATA code 4U continued to operate under the Eurowings brand until March 2018, when it was abandoned and replaced with the Eurowings designator EW. Germanwings was closed and merged back into Eurowings in April 2020 as part of a broad restructuring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

History

Early years

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Germanwings_Logo_002.svg" caption="Germanwings' logo used until 2013"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Airbus_A319-132,_Germanwings_AN1749519.jpg" caption="Germanwings [[Airbus A319-100]], wearing the airline's first livery, in 2010"] ::

In 1997, Eurowings set up a low-cost department, which became a separate company under the name Germanwings on 27 October 2002. On 7 December 2005, the airline signed an agreement to purchase 18 Airbus A319-100 aircraft with a further 12 options, with deliveries scheduled from July 2006 until 2008.

During winter 2004–05, Germanwings leased two Boeing 717-200s from Aerolíneas de Baleares to test the aircraft type, but no purchase order was made afterwards.

In 2008, initial plans were made to merge Germanwings, Eurowings and TUIfly into one airline to compete with Air Berlin and its subsidiary LTU in the German market and with easyJet and Ryanair on international routes. However, these plans were never realized. Instead, Germanwings became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa on 1 January 2009.

Takeover of Lufthansa routes from 2012

In 2012, Lufthansa announced its plans to transfer point-to-point shorthaul flights operating from cities other than Frankfurt and Munich from Lufthansa to Germanwings. Therefore, the company received a revised corporate design. These transfers were made between spring 2013 and autumn 2014; Düsseldorf Airport was the last base transferred from March 2014.

As part of the 2013 restructuring and relaunch of Germanwings, around 30 Lufthansa aircraft were to be added to Germanwings' fleet of 33 aircraft. Additionally, the 23 aircraft currently operated by Eurowings for Lufthansa flights not flying out of Frankfurt and Munich were to join Germanwings. The new Germanwings was to operate around 90 aircraft.

The airline had a long-standing dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit union, which demanded a plan in which pilots can retire at the age of 55 and retain 60% of their pay, which parent Lufthansa insists was not affordable. Germanwings pilots staged a nationwide strike in support of their demands in April 2014, which lasted 3 days. The pilots staged a six-hour strike in September 2014. Simultaneous strikes were staged by Lufthansa pilots.

By the end of 2014, all of Lufthansa's national routes and international traffic to and from Germany, except flights to and from Frankfurt and Munich and the routes from Düsseldorf to Newark and Chicago, were transferred to Germanwings. The last route to be transferred was Düsseldorf–Zurich on 8 January 2015.

Integration into Eurowings from 2015

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Airbus_A319-112,_Germanwings_JP7591803.jpg" caption="A Germanwings [[Airbus A319-100]] wearing the airline's second livery introduced in 2013"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Germanwings_Airbus_A319-112;D-AKNF@ZRH;22.05.2007_469ga(4291954628).jpg" caption="Park Inn Hotels]]'' livery"] ::

In January 2015, Lufthansa Group announced that it would discontinue the Germanwings brand and replace it with Eurowings starting in late 2015.

On 25 October 2015, Eurowings took over 55 routes previously operated under the Germanwings brand. The first Germanwings bases to be mostly taken over by Eurowings were Düsseldorf Airport, Hamburg Airport - at both of which Eurowings already operated on behalf of Germanwings - and Cologne Bonn Airport.

Lufthansa announced in October 2015 that Germanwings' own website would be dissolved and redirected to Eurowings by January 2016 as part of their merger. However, Germanwings continued to operate as a company. From that date, Eurowings became solely responsible for all sales under the Germanwings brand. In January 2016, Germanwings' social media profiles, such as those on Facebook and YouTube, were renamed Eurowings, while germanwings.com was redirected to eurowings.com. However, Germanwings continued to operate under its own flight numbers, but used the Eurowings brand.

In December 2016, it was announced that Germanwings would retire 20 aircraft during 2017 without replacement due to Lufthansa's new wet-lease deal with Air Berlin which also provided services for Eurowings. It was reported that the Air Berlin aircraft were newer and cheaper to operate than those of Germanwings.

In August 2017, it was announced that Germanwings would abandon its own IATA code 4U by 25 March 2018. Since then, it has used Eurowings' EW code on for all operations, which are already carried out under the Eurowings brand.

In October 2019, the Pristina base, which had been operated by Germanwings since June 2019, was transferred to Eurowings Europe. In return, Germanwings took over the German base in Munich which had been operated by its sister airline.

On 7 April 2020, Lufthansa announced that it would be shutting down Germanwings, partly due to the large travel ban during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Corporate affairs

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Germanwings_Headquarter_2015_1.jpg" caption="Germanwings' head office in [[Cologne"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Germanwings_-_cabin_best_seats.jpg" caption="Cabin of a Germanwings aircraft"] ::

Service concept

Germanwings had offered three fare types since 2013. Basic was no-frills and offered no inclusive catering and only hand luggage. Best included hold baggage, inclusive snacks and drinks as well as access to some lounges for tier members of Miles&More. Smart and Best more or less corresponded to the Lufthansa service offered on the routes taken over by Germanwings. The fleet was only equipped with economy class.

Germanwings offered Sky Bistro (Bord Shop in German), a buy on board food and drinks programme. The airline provided an inflight magazine, a bi-monthly German and English magazine called GW. While the primary editorial focus was rooted in Germanwings destinations, the content was not exclusively about travel.

Germanwings booking service provided Blind Booking, a unique option that allowed passengers to choose one of Germanwings' base airports, select a category of destination (e.g. Party, Gay-friendly or Culture) and then purchase a round-trip ticket via a random lottery process from among the cities in the category. Such tickets were often priced lower than the corresponding ticket to the same destination, and Germanwings e-mails its customers with details of their destination shortly after the purchase.

Business trends

Germanwings had been wholly owned by Lufthansa since 1 January 2009; formal reporting since then had been within the Group Accounts. From 2012, Germanwings figures had been reported only within the 'Lufthansa Passenger Airline Group', and have not generally been available separately. The key known trends for Germanwings are shown below (as at year ending 31 December):

::data[format=table]

20082009201020112012201320142015
Turnover (€m)628580630687n/an/aSeparate
data no
longer
available
Profits (EBITDA) (€m)3963n/an/a
Number of employees (at year end)1,0461,1111,2721,2741,3522,073
Number of passengers (m)7.67.27.77.57.816
Passenger load factor (%)n/an/a77.278.2n/an/a
Number of aircraft (at year end)25263030326784
Notes/sources
::

In line with Lufthansa's declared business strategy, the transfer of European non-hub traffic from Lufthansa Passenger Airlines to Germanwings continued in 2014 and was completed successfully on 7 January 2015. (The increase in 2013 and 2014 figures was due to this intervening transfer of aircraft and routes from Lufthansa.)

Destinations

Germanwings served more than 130 destinations across Europe.

Codeshare agreements

Germanwings had codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

Fleet

Germanwings operated the following aircraft:

::data[format=table]

AircraftTotalIntroducedRetiredNotes
Airbus A319-1005020022020Operated for Eurowings between 2015 and 2020
Airbus A320-2002620032019
Boeing 717-200220042005Leased from Aerolíneas de Baleares
McDonnell Douglas MD-81120072007Leased from Nordic Airways
McDonnell Douglas MD-82120072007Leased from FlyNordic
McDonnell Douglas MD-83120072007Leased from Nordic Airways
::

Special liveries

Germanwings used several different special liveries. Some aircraft had special liveries promoting German cities (e.g. the Bearbus paint scheme inspired by the coat of arms of Berlin), or as advertisements (e.g. a pink livery for T-Mobile). Those were abandoned during the 2013 rebranding.

Incidents and accidents

References

References

  1. "[http://www.germanwings.com/en/Imprint-Registered-office.htm Imprint] {{Webarchive. link. (2014-10-09 ." ''Germanwings''. Retrieved on April 29, 2010. "Head Office: Germanwings-Str. 2 51147 Cologne")
  2. (2007-04-03). "Directory: World Airlines". [[Flight International]].
  3. Aero International, June 2006
  4. [http://www.tui-group.com/en/pressemedien/press_releases/2008/20080129_tuitravel_strategy.html Announcement of TUI AG]. Tui-group.com. Retrieved on 2012-05-01.
  5. (September 20, 2012). "Lufthansa to Combine European Flights Into Low-Cost Unit". Bloomberg.
  6. link. (2013-05-09 ." ''[[Aviation Week]]''. 11 October 2012. Retrieved on 11 October 2012.)
  7. [https://www.germanwings.com/en/The-new-Germanwings.htm The "New Germanwings"] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-07-30 . Germanwings.com. Retrieved on 2012-12-30.)
  8. (6 September 2014). "Lufthansa pilots' strike causes cancellation of more than 200 flights". Travel Trade.Org.
  9. "Germania, Ryanair und mehr - Aktuelle Streckenmeldungen". airliners.de.
  10. "Lufthansa-Direktverkehre: Umstellung auf Germanwings auf der Zielgeraden". airliners.de.
  11. "Online Flugplan - Lufthansa ® Deutschland".
  12. Volker Mester. (4 December 2014). "Lufthansa - Neue Billiglinie Eurowings soll Germanwings ersetzen - Wirtschaft - Hamburger Abendblatt".
  13. "germanwings Moves 55 Routes to Eurowings from late-Oct 2015 {{!".
  14. "germanwings / Eurowings Route Transfers in April 2016 {{!".
  15. [http://www.airliners.de/eurowings-a330-langstreckenjet-kurzstrecke/36558 airliners.de - "Eurowings gets ready for long-haul"] 15 October 2015
  16. [https://www.germanwings.com/de/rechtliches/impressum.html germanwings.com - Impressum] retrieved 30 December 2015
  17. [http://www.austrianaviation.net/detail/eurowings-ab-deal-geht-zu-lasten-von-germanwings/ austrianaviation.net - "Eurowings: Air Berlin deal at the expense of Germanwings"] 16 December 2016
  18. [http://www.aerotelegraph.com/germanwings-gibt-iata-code-4u-auf aerotelegraph.com - "Germanwings gives up IATA-Code 4U"] (German) 23 August 2017
  19. "Eurowings eröffnet Basis und stationiert A319 in Pristina".
  20. (2018-12-13). "Eurowings wechselt durch: Germanwings löst Eurowings Europe in München ab".
  21. (7 April 2020). "Lufthansa to discontinue Germanwings in sweeping restructuring".
  22. "Coronavirus latest: Wuhan lockdown lifted".
  23. "What fares are available?".
  24. "[http://www.germanwings.com/de/downloads/Speisekarte_4U.pdf]." ''Germanwings''. Retrieved on 19 July 2012.
  25. [http://www.ink-live.com/emagazines/german-wings-magazine/1051/april-2012/ Germanwings – Magazine :: Apr 2012 — Ink eMagazines] {{Webarchive. link. (2012-05-01 . Ink-live.com. Retrieved on 2012-05-01.)
  26. "Blind Booking".
  27. "Annual Report 2008". Lufthansa.
  28. "Annual Report 2009". Lufthansa.
  29. "Annual Report 2010". Lufthansa.
  30. "Annual Report 2011". Lufthansa.
  31. "Investor Info 2011". Lufthansa.
  32. "Annual Report 2012". Lufthansa.
  33. "Facts and Figures June 2013". Lufthansa.
  34. "Die neue Germanwings". Lufthansa.
  35. "Facts and Figures March 2014". Lufthansa.
  36. "Fleet & Crew - About Germanwings".
  37. "Lufthansa Annual Report 2014". Lufthansa.
  38. "Lufthansa Annual Report 2014". Lufthansa.
  39. (5 September 2015). "Destinations". Germanwings.
  40. "Profile on Germanwings". Centre for Aviation.
  41. [http://www.germanwings.com/downloads/GW_Werbemedien_2012_EN.pdf Germanwings advertisement brochure, Advertisement through aircraft painting] {{Webarchive. link. (2012-05-08 . Retrieved 2012-01-20)
  42. (2017-01-09). "German investigators find only pilot Lubitz at fault in Germanwings crash". Reuters.
  43. (26 March 2015). "Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane deliberately: French prosecutor". Reuters.
  44. (26 March 2015). "Germanwings Co-Pilot Deliberately Crashed Airbus Jet, French Prosecutor Says". The New York Times.
  45. (26 March 2015). "Germanwings Plane Crash Investigation". The Guardian.
  46. Hradecky, Simon. (6 February 2020). "Incident: Germanwings A319 at Stuttgart on Jun 26th 2017, TCAS descent at 1200 feet AGL".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

defunct-airlines-of-germanyairlines-established-in-2002airlines-disestablished-in-2020german-brandsdefunct-low-cost-airlinesdefunct-european-low-cost-airlinescompanies-based-in-cologne2002-establishments-in-germanylufthansagerman-companies-disestablished-in-2020german-companies-established-in-2002airlines-disestablished-due-to-the-covid-19-pandemic