German Airways Fluggesellschaft

GmbH (; ) is a type of Juridical person, legal entity in German-speaking countries. It is equivalent to a (Sàrl) in the Romandy, French-speaking region of Switzerland and to a (Sagl) in the Ticino, Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. It is a ...

, operating as German Airways and formerly named ''Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter'' or ''LGW'' for short, was a German

regional airline A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North ...

headquartered in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. Originally LGW was an independent provider of scheduled and chartered low-volume passenger flights. After years of cooperation with

Air Berlin Air Berlin plc & Co. Luftverkehrs KG (), branded as airberlin or airberlin.com, was a major German airline. At its peak, it was Germany's second-largest airline after Lufthansa, as well as Europe's tenth-largest airline in terms of passengers c ...

, it eventually became a subsidiary of Air Berlin in 2017. After the collapse of Air Berlin it was purchased by

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), trading as the Lufthansa Group, is a German aviation group. Its major and founding subsidiary airline Lufthansa German Airlines, branded as Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. It ranks List of largest airlin ...

in October 2017 and became a unit of the group's low-cost carrier

Eurowings Eurowings GmbH is a Germany, German low-cost carrier 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 main ...

. Zeitfracht Group completed the purchase of LGW from Lufthansa on 1 April 2019 and renamed it in early 2020. The contract with

was terminated in April 2020 and LGW filed for insolvency. Its former sister company German Regional Airlines continues to operate using the German Airways brand.

History

Independent company

Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter was founded in 1980 by Bernd Walter, the owner of a flying school at Dortmund Airport.Information about Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter at the Aero Transport Data Bank
/ref> Initially, LGW offered on-demand charter and

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...

services. During the 1990s, the airline grew a network of scheduled domestic flights.LGW timetable front covers, at timetableimages.com
/ref> At that time, it had 25 employees and the

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. 245 were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics ...

, with its capacity of 19 passengers, was the largest airliner in its fleet.

Partnership with Air Berlin

In 2007, LGW entered into a partnership with

, which at the time was the second largest German airline. Effective 12 October of that year, LGW flights to

Düsseldorf Airport Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the seventh-largest city in Germany, with a 2022 population of 629,047. The Düsse ...

and Berlin Tegel Airport were sold via the Air Berlin booking engine. In 2008, Air Berlin added the De Havilland Dash 8-400 to its fleet. The ten aircraft of that type were leased to LGW and operated on regional routes. Subsequently, LGW discontinued its independent corporate identity. It no longer offered any chartered services, but operated scheduled flights on behalf of Air Berlin, using Air Berlin flight numbers and branding. The website ''lgw.de'' was shut down and replaced with a redirect to ''airberlin.com''. On 2 March 2009, Air Berlin notified the

Federal Cartel Office The Federal Cartel Office (, ; BKartA) is Germany's national competition regulatory agency. First established in 1958, BKartA comes under the authority of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The agency is headquartered ...

that it would become the controlling shareholder of LGW. As LGW staff did not have a

collective agreement A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company (or with a ...

, salaries were considerably lower than at Air Berlin. To cut costs, Air Berlin transferred a large number of its staff to LGW (especially those whose fixed-term contracts had expired). By the end of 2011, LGW had 110 employees. By early 2013, they had grown to 480. Since that year, LGW also employed jet pilots, as a number of Embraer 190 aircraft were transferred to the airline from

Niki __NOTOC__ Niki may refer to: People * Niki (given name) * Niki (singer) * Ni-Ki, member of the South Korean boy band Enhypen. Places * Niki, Hokkaido, a town in Japan * Niki, Florina, a village in Greece Other uses * Niki (airline), former ...

(another Air Berlin subsidiary), the first of which arrived on 14 March and left the fleet in November 2013. By spring 2015, LGW increased their fleet of De Havilland Dash 8-400s from 12 to 17.LGW ch-aviation.com - Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter
retrieved 22 November 2015 In May 2017, Air Berlin announced plans to buy Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter outright, having held a controlling stake since 2009.

Sale to Lufthansa

bought LGW in 2017 as part of Air Berlin's bankruptcy proceedings.austrianaviation.net - "Niki to be history by year's end"
(German) 25 October 2017 After Air Berlin ceased operations on 27 October 2017, LGW started wetlease operations for

, taking over parts of the wetlease agreement previously provided by its parent for the Lufthansa subsidiary. In addition to its existing fleet of Dash 8-Q400 aircraft, it received 13 Airbus A320-family aircraft and started hiring crews in November 2017. The acquisition was closed in January 2018 after receiving approval from the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

on 21 December 2017. In late 2018, all LGW

Airbus A320 family The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the fami ...

aircraft were moved to other companies within the Eurowings network.http://www.austrianaviation.net/detail/lgw-beendet-das-jetzeitalter-erneut/ austrianaviation.net - "LGW again ends the jetage" , date= 8 January 2019

Sale to Zeitfracht Group and rebranding

In January 2019, it was reported that Lufthansa planned to sell LGW to ''Zeitfracht'', which already owns German ACMI and charter airline German Airways (formerly branded WDL Aviation). Zeitfracht had already purchased parts of Air Berlin's maintenance division. The deal was completed on 1 April 2019, following the approval of supervisory authorities and the fulfillment of customary conditions. The takeover also marked the beginning of a longer-term lease agreement between LGW and Eurowings.pressebox.de - "Zeitfracht Holding New LGW Owner - Smooth Transition - Flight Operation Without Disturbances"
(German) 1 April 2019) In May 2019, LGW announced it would replace all of its De Havilland Dash 8-400s with newer Embraer 190s from late 2019. These aircraft will be operated for

as part of a long-term lease. In March 2020, Zeitfracht announced a rebranding for LGW which became ''German Airways'' operating within the ''German Airways'' branding alongside sister company WDL Aviation.airliners.de - "LGW and WDL get new names"
(German) 11 March 2020 In April 2020, the company filed for

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet i ...

with plans to restructure due to the cancellation of

' wetlease contract for their entire Bombardier DHC-8-400 fleet in the wake of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

.airliners.de - "Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter files for insolvency"
(German) 22 April 2020

Destinations

As of January 2019, German Airways operated European routes on behalf of

with a focus on

, where most aircraft were based. This contract was terminated in April 2020.

Fleet

Current fleet

As of March 2020, the joint German Airways fleet consisted of the following aircraftgermanairways.com - Fleet
retrieved 10 March 2020

Historical fleet

Previously, LGW operated the following aircraft types under its own brand or on behalf of other airlines:

References

External links

* {{Lufthansa Defunct airlines of Germany Airlines established in 1980 Airlines disestablished in 2020 1980 establishments in West Germany Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Companies based in Düsseldorf Lufthansa German companies disestablished in 2020 German companies established in 1980