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59-451: Germanwings operated independently as Lufthansa's low-cost carrier until October 2015, when Lufthansa decided to fully transfer the brand identity of its low cost short haul-product to Eurowings. After 2016, Germanwings operated as a wet lease operator for its sister company Eurowings , with the Germanwings branding being phased out at this time. The IATA code "4U" continued to operate under

118-408: A buy on board food and drinks programme. The airline provided an inflight magazine, a bi-monthly German and English magazine called GW . While the primary editorial focus was rooted in Germanwings destinations, the content was not exclusively about travel. Germanwings booking service provided Blind Booking , a unique option that allowed passengers to choose one of Germanwings' base airports, select

177-414: A finance lease . A wet lease is a leasing arrangement whereby one airline (the lessor ) provides an aircraft, complete crew, maintenance, and insurance (ACMI) to another airline or other type of business acting as a broker of air travel (the lessee ), which pays by hours operated. The lessee provides fuel and covers airport fees, and any other duties, taxes, etc. The flight uses the flight number of

236-520: A B737-8 can be leased for slightly more than $ 385,000 per month and a 12 year term with a good credit can be lower than $ 370,000 per month for an A320neo (0.74% of its around $ 49 million capital cost ), generating $ 53 million of revenue and over $ 8.5 million in an end of lease compensation for maintenance , while still being worth $ 20 million. Airlines which cannot afford a good deal on factory direct aircraft or carriers who prefer to maintain flexibility can lease their aircraft with an operating lease or

295-476: A category of destination (e.g. Party, Gay-friendly or Culture) and then purchase a round-trip ticket via a random lottery process from among the cities in the category. Such tickets were often priced lower than the corresponding ticket to the same destination, and Germanwings e-mails its customers with details of their destination shortly after the purchase. Germanwings had been wholly owned by Lufthansa since 1 January 2009; formal reporting since then had been within

354-551: A change of plans for their Vienna operations. Austrian Airlines would not operate some routes for the Eurowings brand as planned; instead, Eurowings Europe would handle all these flights itself. In October 2015, Eurowings took over 55 Germanwings routes. By April 2016, Eurowings had taken over several more routes. Eurowings has been solely responsible for all sales under the Germanwings brand since October 2015. From November 2015, Eurowings were offering one-way fares to destinations in

413-409: A company. From that date, Eurowings became solely responsible for all sales under the Germanwings brand. In January 2016, Germanwings' social media profiles, such as those on Facebook and YouTube , were renamed Eurowings, while germanwings.com was redirected to eurowings.com . However, Germanwings continued to operate under its own flight numbers, but used the Eurowings brand. In December 2016, it

472-571: A compound annual growth rate ( CAGR ) of 4.1%. A dry lease is a leasing arrangement whereby an aircraft financing entity (lessor), such as AerCap or Air Lease Corporation , provides an aircraft without crew, ground staff, etc. Dry lease is typically used by leasing companies and banks, requiring the lessee to put the aircraft on its own air operator's certificate (AOC) and provide aircraft registration. A typical dry lease lasts upwards of two years and bears certain conditions with respect to depreciation, maintenance, insurances, etc., depending also on

531-573: A dry lease. In some markets, there may also be hybrid models, such as with crew provided by lessees. Operating leases of jet airliner accounted for less than 2% of the fleet in 1976, then 15% in the early 1990s, 25% in 2000 and 40% in 2017, with lessors involved in 62% of second hand mid-life aircraft transactions since 2000: 42% in Europe and 29% in North America. In 2015, over $ 120 billion worth of commercial aircraft were delivered worldwide and half of

590-492: A form of charter whereby the lessor provides minimum operating services, including ACMI, and the lessee provides the balance of services along with flight numbers. In all other forms of charter, the lessor provides the flight numbers. Variations of a wet lease include a code share arrangement, a block seat agreement, and a capacity purchase agreement. Wet leases are occasionally used for political reasons. For instance, EgyptAir , an Egyptian government enterprise, for many years

649-581: A further 12 options , with deliveries scheduled from July 2006 until 2008. During winter 2004–2005, Germanwings leased two Boeing 717-200s from Aerolíneas de Baleares to test the aircraft type, but no order was made afterwards. In 2008, initial plans were made to merge Germanwings, Eurowings and TUIfly into one airline to compete with Air Berlin and its subsidiary LTU in the German market and with easyJet and Ryanair on international routes. However, these plans never realized. Instead, Germanwings became

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708-484: A larger aircraft requires. Reconfiguring an Airbus A330 -300 can cost $ 7 million and even more for a Boeing 777 -300ER or an Airbus A380 : introducing IFE - $ 1.5 million ($ 5,000 per seat), replacing business seats - $ 1.5 million ($ 30,000 each), replacing economy seats - $ 1 million ($ 5,000 each), a new lavatory or galley - $ 100,000, moving a monument - $ 35,000, class dividers - $ 50,000, passenger service units - $ 9,000 per passenger, sidewall panels - $ 6,000 each, updating

767-591: A long-standing dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit union, which demanded a plan in which pilots can retire at the age of 55 and retain 60% of their pay, which parent Lufthansa insists was not affordable. Germanwings pilots staged a nationwide strike in support of their demands in April 2014, which lasted 3 days. The pilots staged a six-hour strike in September 2014. Simultaneous strikes were staged by Lufthansa pilots. By

826-452: A total of 38 Airbus A319/A320 aircraft for six years to Lufthansa Group's Eurowings (33 aircraft) and Austrian Airlines (five), starting from February 2017. As a result, Eurowings will phase out Germanwings' older A320s. On 15 February 2017, Eurowings retired their last Bombardier CRJ900 after a flight from Karlsruhe to Hamburg . All CRJ900s have been handed over to Lufthansa CityLine and replaced by larger Airbus A320-200s , as part of

885-604: A turnaround plan introduced by Lufthansa. In April 2020, Lufthansa announced a major downsizing for Eurowings in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic . While Germanwings has been shut entirely and Eurowings is to phase out several aircraft, most wet-lease contracts have been ended on short notice. Amongst the terminated agreements was the largest one with German Airways (formerly LGW) for their entire Bombardier DHC-8-400 fleet. In February 2021, Lufthansa announced it would take over most of Eurowings' routes at Munich Airport with

944-401: A wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa on 1 January 2009. In 2012, Lufthansa announced its plans to transfer point-to-point shorthaul flights operating from cities other than Frankfurt and Munich from Lufthansa to Germanwings. Therefore, the company received a revised corporate design. The transfer of Lufthansa's shorthaul routes occurred between spring 2013 and autumn 2014; Düsseldorf Airport

1003-604: The Airbus A320-200 , after taking delivery of its first on 20 January, which was received from Lufthansa and repainted in Eurowings' new livery. This and further A320s would be operated on behalf of Germanwings for most of 2015, until Lufthansa consolidated its low-cost operations under the new Eurowings brand by end of that year. Additionally, in February 2015, the Lufthansa Group announced that SunExpress Deutschland would be

1062-472: The Bearbus paint scheme inspired by the coat of arms of Berlin ), or as advertisements (e.g. a pink livery for T-Mobile ). Those were abandoned during the 2013 rebranding. As of the merger, Germanwings had been involved in one major incident, which resulted in 150 fatalities. On 24 March 2015, an Airbus A320-211 with registration D-AIPX was operating Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf when it crashed in

1121-420: The 150 lessors are managing 8,400 aircraft worth $ 256 billion with 2,321 aircraft on backlog from 28 of them, their penetration having stabilised at 42.6%. Aircraft lessors are often banks, hedge funds or financial institutions. Aircraft financing is a $ 140 billion industry, dominated by Ireland due to the rise and collapse in 1992 of pioneer Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), of which the former executives manage

1180-412: The 50 largest in 2017, led by ICBC leasing in the top ten, having the value of their managed fleet grew by 15% since 2016. In a few cases, Chinese lessors forgot they had to get secondary leases and missed the redelivery timing, stranding aircraft for a few months. Rentals are often anchored to LIBOR rates. A320neo and B737 MAX 8 lease rates are $ 20-30,000 higher than their predecessors: by 2018,

1239-606: The Caribbean and Thailand for as little as 99 euros. In December 2015, Eurowings' new long-haul operations faced severe criticism, as every fourth flight was delayed by an average of 5.8 hours, with some flights delayed more than 20 hours. Lufthansa stated that unexpected technical difficulties and a small fleet were to blame; Eurowings started its first seven long-haul routes with only one own aircraft. Shortly after, Eurowings again faced severe public outrage and negative media coverage, after one of their flights from Varadero to Cologne

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1298-479: The Czech Republic. Eurowings has gone through a major transformation in recent years. It was part of Lufthansa Regional until October 2014. At that time, it began operating on behalf of Germanwings within their network. Since spring 2015, Eurowings has been redeveloped into a value carrier for short- and long-haul flights. By October 2015, it had also started to incorporate Germanwings' route network as part of

1357-518: The Eurowings brand until March 2018, when it was abandoned and replaced with the Eurowings designator EW . Germanwings was closed and merged back into Eurowings in April 2020 as part of a broad restructuring and the Covid 19 pandemic . In 1997, Eurowings set up a low-cost department, which became a separate company under the name Germanwings on 27 October 2002. On 7 December 2005, the airline signed an agreement to purchase 18 Airbus A319-100 aircraft with

1416-573: The Eurowings brand. In October 2019, the Pristina base, which had been operated by Germanwings since June 2019, was transferred to Eurowings Europe . In return, Germanwings took over the German base in Munich which had been operated by its sister airline. On 7 April 2020, Lufthansa announced that it would be shutting down Germanwings, partly due to the large travel ban during the COVID-19 pandemic . Germanwings had offered three fare types since 2013. Basic

1475-484: The Germanwings brand. The first Germanwings bases to be mostly taken over by Eurowings were Düsseldorf Airport , Hamburg Airport - at both of which Eurowings already operated on behalf of Germanwings - and Cologne Bonn Airport . Lufthansa announced in October 2015 that Germanwings' own website would be dissolved and redirected to Eurowings by January 2016 as part of their merger. However, Germanwings continued to operate as

1534-481: The Group Accounts. From 2012, Germanwings figures had been reported only within the 'Lufthansa Passenger Airline Group', and have not generally been available separately. The key known trends for Germanwings are shown below (as at year ending 31 December): In line with Lufthansa's declared business strategy, the transfer of European non-hub traffic from Lufthansa Passenger Airlines to Germanwings continued in 2014 and

1593-582: The IFE database - $ 125,000, repainting the aircraft - $ 100,000, engineering costs - $ 100,000. Eurowings Eurowings GmbH is a German value airline headquartered in Düsseldorf , North Rhine-Westphalia , and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group . Founded in 1996, it serves a network of domestic and European destinations and maintains bases at several airports throughout Germany, Austria, and

1652-414: The Lufthansa Group announced that Eurowings will drop all long-haul flights and instead focus on short-haul operations aboard Airbus A320-family aircraft. All long-haul flights operated by Eurowings will be transferred to other network airlines- Lufthansa , Brussels Airlines , Austrian Airlines , and Swiss . It was also announced that Brussels Airlines will work more closely with its network partners under

1711-486: The Lufthansa Group announced that Eurowings would replace its 23 Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft with 23 Airbus A320s . Ten of the A320s would be new orders, and 13 would be transferred from Lufthansa Group orders between February 2015 and March 2017. Lufthansa also announced Eurowings' transformation from a regional airline into a low-cost long and short-haul carrier by the end of 2015. On 1 February 2015, Eurowings started operating

1770-451: The Lufthansa Group announced that starting in October 2019, Eurowings would introduce long-haul flights from Frankfurt Airport and further its Munich hub to expand Lufthansa's tourist-oriented presence and cooperation with these two hubs. It was announced that the original routes serviced from Frankfurt would be Mauritius, Barbados, and Windhoek, and Bangkok from Munich. However, in June 2019,

1829-571: The US. DHL has a joint venture in the United States with Polar Air Cargo , a subsidiary of Atlas Air , to operate their domestic deliveries. In the United Kingdom, a wet lease refers to an aircraft lease in which the aircraft is operated under the air operator's certificate (AOC) of the lessor. An arrangement where the lessor provides the aircraft, flight crew and maintenance but the lessee provides

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1888-436: The airline was part of Lufthansa Regional. In March 2011, the maintenance division at Nürnberg Airport was also closed. In late 2013, Eurowings' short-haul flights that are not operated from Frankfurt or Munich were transferred from Lufthansa to Germanwings. All Eurowings flights operated on behalf of Lufthansa Regional ceased by autumn 2014 and were rebranded to Germanwings, the last ones to and from Düsseldorf. In July 2014,

1947-646: The airlines of the Lufthansa Group implemented a policy requiring this. However, by 2016, the EASA stopped recommending the two-person rule, instead advising airlines to perform a risk assessment and decide for themselves whether to use the rule. Germanwings and other German airlines dropped the rule in 2017. [REDACTED] Media related to Germanwings at Wikimedia Commons Wet lease Aircraft leases are leases used by airlines and other aircraft operators. Airlines lease aircraft from other airlines or leasing companies for two main reasons: to operate aircraft without

2006-568: The cabin crew is sometimes referred to as a "damp lease", a term especially used in the UK ; it is also occasionally referred to as a "moist lease". In the UK, a dry lease is when an aircraft is operated under the AOC of the lessee. At the end of July 2015, the top 50 aircraft lessors managed 8,184 aircraft: 511 turboprop regional airliners , 792 regional jets , 5,612 narrowbody and 1,253 widebody airliners. In 2017,

2065-590: The end of 2014, all of Lufthansa's national routes and international traffic to and from Germany - except flights to and from Frankfurt and Munich and the routes from Düsseldorf to Newark and Chicago - were transferred to Germanwings. The last route to be transferred was Düsseldorf-Zurich on 8 January 2015. In January 2015, Lufthansa Group announced that it would discontinue the Germanwings brand and replace it with Eurowings starting in late 2015. On 25 October 2015, Eurowings took over 55 routes previously operated under

2124-497: The exception of few domestic services and flights to Palma de Mallorca and Pristina . Also in early 2021, Eurowings discontinued all of their long-haul destinations, which had been served from Düsseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt. At the same time, parent Lufthansa announced that these routes would be spun off as new long-haul carrier Eurowings Discover . In 2021 Eurowings announced it would add yet another base, this time to Prague , Czech Republic. In May 2022, Eurowings announced

2183-460: The financial burden of buying them, as well as to provide temporary increase in capacity. The industry has two main leasing types: wet-leasing, which is normally used for short-term leasing, and dry-leasing which is more normal for longer-term leases. The industry also uses combinations of wet and dry. For example, when the aircraft is wet-leased to establish new services, then as the airline's flight or cabin crews become trained, they can be switched to

2242-552: The first foreign base at Basel/Mulhouse were cancelled. In June 2015, the Lufthansa Group announced the application for an additional air operator's certificate (AOC) for Eurowings in Austria, called Eurowings Europe , under which all new Airbus A320-200s would be operated while the "current" German Eurowings would continue to operate the existing fleet. This was planned due to lower operational costs based on Austrian Airlines union agreements. On 2 October 2015, Lufthansa announced

2301-399: The fleet, which were later followed by larger Airbus A320 family aircraft and even an Airbus A310 . Lufthansa took an initial 24.9% stake in Eurowings in 2001, increasing it to 49% in 2004. It has exercised full control of the airline since 2005, and it assumed complete ownership in 2011. As of 31 December 2006, Lufthansa had a 49% shareholding in Eurowings with a call option for 50.91% of

2360-406: The geographical location, political circumstances, etc. A dry-lease arrangement can also be made between a major airline and a regional airline , in which the major airline provides the aircraft and the regional operator provides flight crews, maintenance and other operational aspects of the aircraft, which then may be operated under the major airline's name or some similar name. A dry lease saves

2419-898: The global lessors were based in Ireland . Having an aggressive growth mandate, more aggressive, smaller entrants have overpaid for many of their assets in the sale and leaseback market and are then undercharged on lease rates in order to win the business, with lower maintenance reserves and return conditions: lease-rate factors have fallen to 0.6% per month (7.2% per year), even reaching 0.55% (6.6% per year). Despite Air Berlin and Monarch Airlines bankruptcies, their leased aircraft have been rapidly placed at "normal market rates" due to traffic growth as global revenue passenger kilometers are up by 7.7% over one year through September 2017, and Airbus struggles to deliver A320neos due to engine supply delays. In 2007, Beijing allowed Chinese banks to start leasing units, and nine Chinese lessors were part of

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2478-454: The largest lessors: Aengus Kelly is the CEO of AerCap , the world's largest, Domhnal Slattery heads the third largest, Avolon , and Peter Barrett runs the fourth, SMBC Aviation Capital while the second largest, GECAS , formed from the hulk of GPA. Lessors have a preference for narrowbodies over widebodies due to more remarketing opportunities and the substantial reconfiguration time and cost

2537-427: The lessee. A wet lease generally lasts 1–24 months. A wet lease is typically utilized during peak traffic seasons or annual heavy maintenance checks , or to initiate new routes. A wet-leased aircraft may be used to fly services into countries where the lessee is banned from operating. It can also be used to replace unavailable capacity or to circumvent regulatory or political restrictions. They can also be considered

2596-483: The major airline the expense of training personnel to fly and maintain the aircraft, along with other considerations (such as staggered union contracts, regional airport staffing, etc.). FedEx Express uses an arrangement of this type for its feeder operations, contracting to companies such as Empire Airlines , Mountain Air Cargo , Swiftair , and others to operate its single and twin-engined turbo-prop "feeder" aircraft in

2655-751: The merger of the two brands. Eurowings operates from bases in Germany, and its Maltese subsidiary Eurowings Europe operates from bases in other European countries. All flights operated by both carriers are scheduled, marketed and sold by Eurowings. The airline was formed on 1 February 1990, following a merger of Nürnberger Flugdienst (NFD) and Reise- und Industrieflug (RFG), two commuter airlines based in Nürnberg and Dortmund , respectively. Flight operations using an initial fleet of ATR 42 and 72 aircraft inherited from Eurowings' predecessors were launched on 1 January 1994. Subsequently, BAe 146 aircraft were added to

2714-436: The operator of Eurowings' new long-haul operations, which were to be based at Cologne Bonn Airport from November 2015. SunExpress Deutschland therefore would receive leased Airbus A330-200s . Eurowings also announced the establishment of its first base outside of Germany, at Vienna International Airport , where the aircraft were planned be operated by Austrian Airlines under the Eurowings brand. Previous plans to establish

2773-801: The remaining stakes, bringing the company into the Lufthansa Group fold. At that time, Eurowings was the owner of Germanwings , thus creating a low-cost branch within the Lufthansa trust. Plans to merge these two airlines with TUIfly (controlled by TUI Travel ) into a joint and independent holding company, were brought forth during 2008, but did not materialize. Instead, Lufthansa announced in December 2008 to acquire Germanwings from Eurowings. In September 2010 Eurowings closed its headquarters and technical infrastructure in Dortmund, Germany, and moved both to Düsseldorf, where Eurowings operated most of its flights since

2832-527: The south of France near Digne-les-Bains , with no survivors. The flight was carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew. German investigators concluded that 27-year-old co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had deliberately crashed the plane, while alone in the cockpit. Lubitz took time off from his flight training for several months and informed the Flight Training Pilot School in 2009 of a "previous episode of severe depression". He later completed

2891-532: The termination of its own long-running frequent flyer program Boomerang Club in favour of a merger with Miles & More of parent Lufthansa. The Eurowings Group, which consists of low-cost or hybrid point-to-point airlines, is wholly owned by Lufthansa , and includes as subsidiaries: Integration of Brussels Airlines within Eurowings was stopped during 2019; it will instead move closer to Lufthansa Network Airlines and report as part of that operating segment from 2020. The business and operating results of

2950-473: The training. Prior to his training as a commercial pilot, he was also treated for suicidal tendencies. Following the incident, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) made a recommendation to airlines that two authorized people must be present in the cockpit at all times. In coordination with the German aviation authority, other German airlines and the German aviation industry association,

3009-411: The transformation from a regional into a low-cost carrier. In February 2018, Eurowings announced the relocation of all its long-haul routes currently operated from Cologne Bonn Airport to Düsseldorf Airport , from which it already flies long-haul routes, by late October 2018 to strengthen their presence there. This leaves Düsseldorf and Munich Airport as Eurowings' long-haul bases. In March 2019,

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3068-561: Was announced that Germanwings would retire 20 aircraft during 2017 without replacement due to Lufthansa's new wet-lease deal with Air Berlin which also provided services for Eurowings . It was reported that the Air Berlin aircraft were newer and cheaper to operate than those of Germanwings. In August 2017, it was announced that Germanwings would abandon its own IATA code 4U by 25 March 2018. Since then, it has used Eurowings' EW code on for all operations, which are already carried out under

3127-400: Was completed successfully on 7 January 2015. (The increase in 2013 and 2014 figures was due to this intervening transfer of aircraft and routes from Lufthansa.) Germanwings had codeshare agreements with the following airlines: Germanwings operated the following aircraft: Germanwings used several different special liveries. Some aircraft had special liveries promoting German cities (e.g.

3186-490: Was delayed by more than 60 hours with passengers with visas whose validity had run out stuck in their hotels. In January 2016, Eurowings cancelled their planned service from Cologne to Tehran , and reduced Dubai flights from year-round to seasonal service. Lufthansa also announced the establishment of a task force in the same month. Its brief would be to eliminate the operational problems which lead to serious delays and to increase operational reliability. In July 2016, it

3245-414: Was made public that Eurowings' owner Lufthansa was considering taking over part of the route network, staff and aircraft leases from Air Berlin , which would then be made part of the Eurowings operations. In August 2016, Eurowings announced further changes to its long-haul operations. The routes to Boston and to Dubai , which had already been changed from year-round to seasonal, were terminated. Boston

3304-476: Was no-frills and offered no inclusive catering and only hand luggage. Best included hold baggage, inclusive snacks and drinks as well as access to some lounges for tier members of Miles&More. Smart and Best more or less corresponded to the Lufthansa service offered on the routes taken over by Germanwings. The fleet was only equipped with economy class . Germanwings offered Sky Bistro ( Bord Shop in German),

3363-462: Was not allowed to fly to Israel under its own name, as a matter of Egyptian government policy. Hence Egyptian flights from Cairo to Tel Aviv were operated by Air Sinai , which wet-leased from EgyptAir to circumvent the political issue. In 2021, Egypt changed its policy and EgyptAir started operating flights to Israel under its own banner. The global wet lease market is projected to grow from US$ 7.35 billion in 2019 to US$ 10.9 billion in 2029,

3422-475: Was only served for three months. Shortly after, Eurowings also announced it would terminate its last route to Moscow , and therefore Russia , due to low demand. Also in August 2016, Eurowings announced it would open its second Austrian base after Vienna, at Salzburg Airport , with flights to six European metropolitan destinations from January 2017. In December 2016, it was announced that Air Berlin would wet-lease

3481-417: Was the last base transferred from March 2014. As part of the 2013 restructuring and relaunch of Germanwings, around 30 Lufthansa aircraft were to be added to Germanwings' fleet of 33 aircraft. Additionally, the 23 aircraft currently operated by Eurowings for Lufthansa flights not flying out of Frankfurt and Munich were to join Germanwings. The new Germanwings was to operate around 90 aircraft. The airline had

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