Lufthansa Airlines
Deutsche Lufthansa AG (FWB: LHA) (German pronunciation: ) is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft (the German word for "air"), and Hansa (after Hanseatic League, the powerful medieval trading group). The airline is the world's fifth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating services to 18 domestic destinations and 183 international destinations in 78 countries across Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe. It is also Germany's largest and 2nd largest in Europe. Together with its partners Lufthansa services around 410 destinations. With over 722 aircraft it has the third-largest passenger airline fleet in the world when combined with its subsidiaries. Lufthansa's registered office and corporate headquarters is in Deutz, Cologne, with its main operations base (Lufthansa Aviation Center [LAC]) and primary traffic hub at Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt am Main with a second hub at Munich Airport. The majority of Lufthansa's pilots, ground staff, and flight attendants are based in Frankfurt. Lufthansa is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance formed in 1997. The Lufthansa Group operates more than 500 aircraft and employs worldwide 105,261 people of 146 nationalities (31 December 2007). In 2008, 70.5 million passengers flew with Lufthansa (not including Germanwings, BMI, AUA, Brussels Airlines). On October 28, 1990, 25 days after reunification, Berlin became a Lufthansa destination again. On May 18, 1997 Lufthansa, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways and United Airlines formed the Star Alliance, the world's first multilateral airline alliance.
In 2000 Air One became a partner airline of Lufthansa and nearly all Air One flights were code-shared with Lufthansa until the purchase of Air One by Alitalia. In June 2003, Lufthansa opened Terminal 2 at Munich's Franz Josef Strauß Airport to relieve its main hub, Frankfurt, which was suffering from capacity constraints. It is one of the first terminals in Europe partially owned by an airline. On May 17, 2004, Lufthansa became the launch customer for the Connexion by Boeing in-flight online connectivity service. On March 22, 2005 SWISS merged with Lufthansa Airlines. The merger included the provision that the majority shareholders (the Swiss government and large Swiss companies) be offered payment if Lufthansa's share price outperforms an airline index during the years following the merger. The two companies will continue to be run separately. On December 6, 2006, Lufthansa placed an order for 20 Boeing 747-8 airliners, becoming the launch customer of the type. The airline will also be the second European airline to operate the Airbus A380 (after Air France). Their first A380 has been delivered on May 19, 2010.
Source: Wikipedia
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