Lufthansa is to launch its first flights to Asia from its Düsseldorf hub, building on the long-haul links it already provides from the North Rhine-Westphalia region to North America. The German flag carrier will introduce a Düsseldorf – Tokyo Narita connection during the Northern Summer schedules, complementing its existing daily links to the Japanese capital from Frankfurt and Munich. The new route will be operated six times every week with the first flight is due to depart the German city on June 1, 2012; it will be operated using an Airbus A340-300.
“Following the introduction of intercontinental routes to the major North American cities of New York, Chicago, Miami and Toronto, we are now expanding our offer towards Asia with a direct flight to Tokyo,” said Oliver Wagner, Senior Vice President Direct Services, Lufthansa. “As one of the most important economic nations, Japan is of major significance to Lufthansa and at the same time, Düsseldorf’s central location in Europe’s most important conurbation makes its “Japan’s capital on the Rhine”. In addition, the integration of Tokyo will help to develop and strengthen our route network at Lufthansa’s Düsseldorf hub and will offer passengers attractive connecting flights to over 50 direct destinations in Germany and Europe.”
The introduction of the new connection represents the culmination of the many years of hard work by the regional government in North-Rhine Westphalia which has invested in consolidating and expanding Düsseldorf as a hub of Japanese trade and industry.
The Düsseldorf region is the main Japanese ‘hub’ in Germany – with over 500 Japanese companies located in the region. A quarter of all Japanese citizens in living in Germany live in the North Rhine-Westphalian capital, making it the third largest Japanese community in Europe, behind London and Paris.
“It has been a long-standing wish of the Japanese community and the city itself to have a direct flight to Japan,” said Dirk Elbers, Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, the State capital of North-Rhine Westphalia. “The economic power of our region, our business relations with Japan and the many Japanese companies here, make such a connection more than worthwhile.
The launch comes at a historic time for Lufthansa in the Japanese market. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Lufthansa’s scheduled flights to Japan. The airline inaugurated its Frankfurt – Tokyo link in 1961, and also has previously served its capital from Düsseldorf, albeit flying with a technical stop in Anchorage, USA between 1968 and the late 1980s.
In the past year an estimated 915,000 O&D passengers travelled between Germany and Japan, up 10.7 per cent on the previous 12 month period. Lufthansa has around a 46.5 per cent share of this market but has seen this slip by 2.3 percentage points over the last year as its Star Alliance partner All Nippon Airways (ANA) has developed its own presence in this market. Its share has risen from 13.8 to 16.2 per cent and will increase further when it introduces its new Frankfurt – Tokyo Haneda route in February 2012; the first scheduled long-haul 787 passenger service and a link that will be operated through its new joint venture with Lufthansa.
Another airline that has seen its share of the Germany – Japan market increase is Finnair. It is the fourth largest carrier between the two markets and its share has increased from 3.3 to 4.1 per cent in the past 12 months, a clear sign that it’s via Helsinki principle and its competitive fares are proving popular with European and Asian travellers.
Around 31,000 O&D passengers already make journeys between Düsseldorf and Tokyo despite the lack of a direct flight. The majority currently fly with Lufthansa via its Frankfurt or Munich hubs or with ANA from Frankfurt, but there remains a large leakage to other operators. An estimated 12,000 passengers last year flew to destinations outside of Germany to connect to the Japanese capital, the main flows being with Air France via Paris CDG (six per cent); Finnair via Helsinki (five per cent); SAS Scandinavian Airlines via Copenhagen (five per cent) and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines via Amsterdam (four per cent).
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