Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH
LUFTHANSA IS planning to introduce intercontinental flights and broaden its European services from Munich, Germany's third-largest airport.
The move will effectively turn the Bavarian capital into the airline's second hub after Frankfurt, says Lufthansa. The carrier cites Munich Airport's modern infrastructure, positive development forecasts and lack of capacity problems as factors influencing its decision. The airport is also well situated geographically for international transfer passengers.
The airline says that its passenger traffic through Munich rose by 3% from 1993 to 1994, and predicts a further 15% rise in 1995.
The first step has been the introduction of a twice-daily service between Munich and Birmingham from 29 October. This will be followed by increased frequencies to Florence, Geneva and Dresden, as well as new services to the Far East within the framework of Lufthansa's partnership with Thai Airways International.
Lufthansa is introducing services to Bangkok from Munich and Frankfurt, the first code-share flights to be introduced under the partnership.
On 29 October, the partners introduced 14 weekly frequencies - evenly shared - from Frankfurt, and two from Munich. These routes are served by Boeing 747s and Airbus A340s.
While continuing to increase its Munich services, Lufthansa intends to station a third A340 at the airport in the third quarter of 1996, to serve San Francisco and Osaka, and a fourth a year later.
Munich Airport registered a record 1.5 million passenger movements in September, peaking at 62,000 on 8 September. Traffic for the first nine months of the year has increased over the previous year's figure by 10%, to 11.3 million passengers. Cargo traffic increased by 2%, to 46,263t and mail carried increased by 19%, to 21,546t over the same period.
Source: Flight International
