Eurowings massively expands long-haul offering in Düsseldorf

Eurowings is massively strengthening its long-haul presence at Düsseldorf airport. Europe's fastest growing airline will position a total of seven long-haul aircraft in the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dusseldorf, from the start of the winter flight schedule 2018/19, significantly expanding Düsseldorf's international connections. In addition to its strong offering of short and medium haul routes, the airline is planning up to 140 long-haul departures per month to attractive destinations in America and the Caribbean. Destinations include New York and Fort Myers (both USA), Havana (Cuba), Cancun (Mexico) and Punta Cana (Dominican Republic). This will gradually close gaps in the customer offering from Düsseldorf which arose as a result of Air Berlin Group's insolvency.

So far, Eurowings has only based one long-haul aircraft at Düsseldorf. Three additional long-haul jets will arrive in Düsseldorf from April 2018, while four Airbus A330 currently operating at the Cologne/Bonn location will be moved over for the winter flight schedule. Eurowings will then concentrate all its NRW long-haul flights in the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia.

"The Düsseldorf airport's catchment area covers more than 18 million residents, there's no larger catchment area in the whole of Germany. This means that together with Eurowings, the airport has great potential to develop an attractive long-haul network for customers," says Oliver Wagner, Eurowings Chief Commercial Officer. "That's why, at the Düsseldorf location, we'll not only continue to grow on domestic German and European routes but will also significantly expand our long-haul fleet." Düsseldorf is already the largest Eurowings location; the Lufthansa subsidiary has more aircraft based there than at any other airport. "We'll soon be operating a fleet of 40 Eurowings aircraft here alone. This provides us with the ideal conditions in the state capital of NRW to feed our growing Eurowings long-haul fleet with lots of feeder flights."

Cologne/Bonn airport will continue to grow along with Eurowings. Eurowings is also expanding its market leadership in Cologne/Bonn by basing three further short and medium haul jets on what will then be a total of 19 aircraft. The growth planned for 2018 alone represents more than 600,000 additional passengers a year. "No other airline in Europe is currently growing faster which benefits not least our home base of Cologne/Bonn" says Wagner.

Eurowings recently decided to step up the frequency of flights between Cologne and Berlin/Tegel - one of the strongest domestic German business routes - to 95 departures a week for summer 2018. At the same time, there is considerable growth in the number of Eurowings staff in the cathedral city. The Lufthansa subsidiary is currently hiring new employees for its growth trajectory in all flight operations and divisions. This also applies to company headquarters in Cologne/Bonn which controls all the Eurowings Group's flight operations commercially from a single source. CCO Wagner states, "We're growing in Düsseldorf, we're growing in Cologne. That's good news for all our customers and employees in North Rhine-Westphalia."