Eurowings Discover: Lufthansa's newest alternative for airline growth

Eurowings Discover, Lufthansa Group's newest airline, operated its inaugural flight on 24-Jul-2021. An Airbus A330-200 flew from Frankfurt via a short stopover in Mombasa on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast to Zanzibar in Tanzania.

The airline's name and livery are consistent with being a sub-brand of Lufthansa Group's Eurowings subsidiary.

However, Eurowings Discover has its own AOC, its own code (4Y) and its own CEO (Wolfgang Raebiger, who also served as captain on the inaugural flight). Moreover, it is a direct subsidiary of Lufthansa, rather than of Eurowings, and will operate on both long haul and short/medium haul.

It is positioned as a leisure airline, but with full service features. Frankfurt-based, it will add services from Munich from summer 2022. By the end of 2021 it plans to be operating seven medium haul and 10 long haul routes (competing with Condor on seven of these long haul routes). Its fleet plan targets 11 A330s and 10 A320s by mid 2022.

Eurowings Discover addresses the problem of Eurowings' withdrawn long haul network. It may also help to focus Eurowings on efficiency on short haul.