Lufthansa CityLine GmbH is a German

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

with its headquarters on the grounds of

Munich Airport Munich International Airport- Franz Josef Strauß (german: link=no, Flughafen München) is an international airport serving Munich and Upper Bavaria. It is the second-busiest airport in Germany in terms of passenger traffic after Frankfurt A ...

. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding ...

and maintains hubs at

Frankfurt Airport Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...

and

, from where it operates a dense domestic and European network as a member of

Lufthansa Regional Lufthansa Regional is an operational entity for regional and feeder flights performed by two regional airlines owned by Lufthansa within its route network.

History

lufthansa regional rj85 d-avrn lands arp

2010-07-08_ERJ190_Cityline_D-AECE_EDDF_01

Early years

The airline was founded as ''Ostfriesische Lufttaxi (OLT)'' in 1958 and became Ostfriesische Lufttransport (OLT) in 1970 - which existed until 2013 as a separate airline - in

Emden Emden () is an independent city and seaport in Lower Saxony in the northwest of Germany, on the river Ems. It is the main city of the region of East Frisia and, in 2011, had a total population of 51,528. History The exact founding date of ...

. It was reorganised and renamed as ''DLT Luftverkehrsgesellschaft'' mbH on 1 October 1974 and began cooperation with Lufthansa in 1978 with short-range international routes. By 1989, all operations were on behalf of Lufthansa. In March 1992, DLT became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and was renamed Lufthansa CityLine. Lufthansa CityLine employs 2,332 people, of whom 664 are cockpit crew, 849 cabin crew and 819 work in the technical and administrative areas as of 31 December 2011. Lufthansa placed an order on 17 April 2007 for 30 Embraer E190/E195 and 15

Bombardier CRJ-900 The Bombardier CRJ700, CRJ900, and CRJ1000 are a family of regional jet airliners that were designed and manufactured by Canadian transportation conglomerate Bombardier (formerly Canadair) between 1999 and 2020. Their design was derived from t ...

aircraft to directly replace CityLine's fleet of

BAe 146 The British Aerospace 146 (also BAe 146) is a short-haul and regional airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2001. Manufacture by Avro Internation ...

and Avro RJ aircraft. The last

Avro RJ85 The British Aerospace 146 (also BAe 146) is a short-haul and regional airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2001. Manufacture by Avro Internationa ...

took off from

Cologne Bonn Airport Cologne Bonn Airport (german: Flughafen Köln/Bonn 'Konrad Adenauer') is the international airport of Germany's fourth-largest city Cologne, and also serves Bonn, former capital of West Germany. With around 12.4 million passengers passing thr ...

on 27 August 2012 as LH1985.

Development since 2014

In late 2014, parent company

announced it would begin transferring eight of its Airbus A340-300 aircraft to CityLine. After reconfiguration to a high-density configuration, these aircraft would be owned by CityLine and operated by CityLine pilots, but wet-leased back to Lufthansa to be used on leisure routes and serviced by Lufthansa cabin crews starting in 2015. The first destinations to be served by the new Bombardier CRJ-700s which left CityLine's fleet by March 2015. In October 2017, a new labour agreement between Lufthansa and its pilot unions was reached. As part of this agreement, the wetlease operations of Lufthansa CityLine on behalf of Lufthansa consisting of eight Airbus A340s were gradually terminated.airliners.de - "Brussels Airlines to take off on long-haul for Eurowings
(German) 19 October 2017 As part of Lufthansa's new corporate design introduced in early 2018, Lufthansa Regional aircraft operated by Lufthansa CityLine are also receiving the new livery, with the ''Lufthansa Regional'' titles being removed from the fuselage and replaced by ''Lufthansa''. In August 2020, Lufthansa CityLine handed back six Airbus A340-300 longhaul aircraft it operated for parent Lufthansa as part of their revised leisure route strategy.airliners.de
5 August 2020 In spring 2022, the airline transferred their last two remaining Embraer 195 to

Air Dolomiti Air Dolomiti S.p.A. is an Italian regional airline with its head office in Dossobuono, Villafranca di Verona, Italy, operating base at Verona Villafranca Airport and focus cities at Munich Airport and Frankfurt Airport in Germany.Airbus A321P2F converted freighter aircraft on behalf of Lufthansa Cargo as well as several

Airbus A319-100 The Airbus A319 is a member of the Airbus A320 family of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners manufactured by Airbus. The A319 carries 124 to 156 passengers and has a maximum range of . Final assem ...

to be flown for Lufthansa mainline.aerotelegraph.com - "Lufthansa Cityline bekommt Airbus A319"
(German) 12 Oktober 2018]

Corporate affairs

The airline was previously headquartered at

. In 1998 the airline moved its offices to the security area of that airport; several of its departments however were in Munich. In 2009 the airline moved its head office into the former Cologne/Bonn Airport administrative building. In May 2013 it was announced that the management and administration offices of CityLine would be relocated from

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. The move was completed as of September 2014. Its corporate headquarters are now at the ''Flight Operations Center'' (FOC) at

Destinations

Fleet

Current fleet

, the Lufthansa CityLine fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Historical fleet

Over the years, Lufthansa CityLine has operated the following aircraft types:

Accidents and incidents

*On 6 January 1993, '' Lufthansa Flight 5634'' from

Bremen Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, which was carried out under the Lufthansa CityLine brand using a Contact Air Dash 8-300 ( registered D-BEAT), hit the ground 1800 metres short of the runway of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, resulting in the death of four out of the 23 passengers on board. The four crew members survived. The accident occurred after the pilot had to abort the

final approach In aeronautics, the final approach (also called the final leg and final approach leg) is the last leg in an aircraft's approach to landing, when the aircraft is lined up with the runway and descending for landing.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of ...

to the airport because the runway had been closed due to the aircraft ahead, a Korean Air

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, ...

, suffering a blown tire upon landing. *On 28 December 1999, a passenger on board ''Lufthansa Flight 5293'' from

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

, which was operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ100 aircraft (registered D-ACJA), claimed to have a bomb on board and demanded the flight be diverted to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. The pilots convinced him to have a fuel stop at Düsseldorf Airport, where all passengers left the plane (many of them unaware of the hijacking attempt), and the perpetrator was arrested. *On 5 July 2014, ''Lufthansa Flight 1360'' from

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popu ...

, operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ700 aircraft (registered D-ACPJ), landed on an unopened and under construction runway at

Katowice International Airport Katowice Wojciech Korfanty Airport ( pl, Katowice Airport im. Wojciecha Korfantego) is an international airport, located in Pyrzowice, north of Katowice, Poland. The airport has the 4th-biggest annual passenger flow in Poland. Katowice Airpor ...

. The pilots performed a normal approach from the East in good conditions and visibility before landing on the closed runway. No one was hurt, and the aircraft later made a technical flight to land on the correct runway. The Polish State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation made recommendations to add additional markings to the runway (in the form of red X shapes on the runway), and to modify the ATIS to include warnings about the closed runway. The CAT I ILS was disabled due to the construction, and the aircraft featured an older EGPWS that lacked a "Smart Landing" mode and high resolution map of the area which prevented it from informing the crew of the situation. During the approach, PAPI and threshold lights were set to maximum brightness. The incident is still being investigated by Polish authorities.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lufthansa Cityline Airlines of Germany European Regions Airline Association Airlines established in 1958 Lufthansa Companies based in Cologne 1958 establishments in West Germany