Lufthansa to Introduce Aberdeen – Frankfurt Link

German national carrier Lufthansa is to inaugurate a three times daily service to the Scottish city of Aberdeen from its Frankfurt hub. The flights will commence on October 30 at the start of the Northern Winter schedules and will be operated using a two-class, 100-seat Embraer 190 of one its regional partners.

The flight is being scheduled to provide further feed into Lufthansa’s Frankfurt hub and its extensive network of 13,304 flights a week to 211 destinations in 84 countries. But, the German carrier also expects a large amount of point-to-point traffic. Aberdeen is a large business market, particularly for the oil and gas industry while Frankfurt is a popular destination, especially for those wishing to visit the numerous trade fairs and exhibitions that take place there every year. The city also boasts an excellent cultural pedigree with first rate museums, high-calibre performance groups, local festivals and beautiful surrounding countryside as well as the traditional German markets, especially popular during the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Lufthansa currently dominates the market between Germany and the UK holding a 23.0 per cent share of the 10.6 million O&D passengers that made journeys between the two countries in the past year. As the table below shows the airline provides more than 440 weekly flights on 21 different routes linking major and provincial destinations.

Lufthansa’s main competitor is British Airways but low-cost operators easyJet and Flybe also operate on some of the routes. Flybe currently competes on two of Lufthansa’s routes from Frankfurt – Birmingham and Manchester – but has confirmed in the past week that it will be suspending its own operations on these links from mid-July.

The German carrier already flies to two destinations in Scotland, although the Highland city of Inverness is only served once a week during the summer. The other is Edinburgh which it serves daily from Dusseldorf (seasonal) and twice daily from Frankfurt. A large number of regional UK cities are pushing for links to Frankfurt, but Lufthansa believes that Aberdeen has the right mix of traffic to make it a business success, particularly due to business travelling from the oil and gas industries. The airline also has a good knowledge of the market through the extensive operations of its subsidiary bmi British Midland International from the airport.

“This new service from Europe’s oil and energy capital is a direct response to business traveller demand and will strengthen Lufthansa’s position in the world’s key oil and energy markets where we serve almost 80 destinations in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Americas “, said Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa General Manager UK and Ireland. “We have ensured that the timetable provides excellent connections to both our European and world-wide network from our Frankfurt.”

An estimated 3,300 O&D passengers travelled between Aberdeen and Frankfurt on indirect services in the past year, although a considerable level of traffic is also believed to have taken ground transport options to travel down to Edinburgh to take advantage of a direct flight. The majority of existing customers are connecting via Amsterdam with KLM or London Heathrow with British Airways. According to an executive at Aberdeen Airport the recent runway extension at the facility “was a key catalyst” in Lufthansa announcing this new route.