Eurowings, Lufthansa’s low cost carrier, has made Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) its hub for the future.
For decades, the Lufthansa Group has reliably connected Berlin with Europe’s most important metropolises as well as long-haul destinations via Lufthansa’s major hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
Furthermore, Eurowings had already emphasized the importance of the capital at the launch of the new airport in October 2020 and announced its intention to strengthen its position in Berlin.
Overall though this isn’t at all surprising for several reasons:
- Munich and Frankfurt are Lufthansa’s main hubs and would cause direct competition in those markets
- Berlin is one of the only capital cities without an airline based there
- Brandenburg was meant to cater to Air Berlin before they went into liquidation so there is already a space ready.
Eurowings was among the first airlines to serve BER after the airport opened for commercial traffic on Oct. 31, 2020, It’s likely that Eurowings aims to push itself on leisure routes in the coming years.
While initially starting with Cologne/Bonn (CGN), Düsseldorf (DUS), Stuttgart (STR) with 3 daily flights; during the summer 2021 season, the airline plans to add flights to Bastia (BIA), Dubrovnik (DBV), Heraklion (HER), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Rijeka (RJK), Salzburg (SZG) and Split (SPU).
My Thoughts
Further down the roadmap, it won’t be a surprise if Eurowings moves its long-haul Eurowings Discover operation out of Frankfurt (FRA) to BER, although they would be two separate companies, in the public’s eye they are one and the same. Lufthansa has already made clear its intentions to only operate international flights out of Frankfurt and Munich leaving other airlines (in this case Eurowings) to cater to the rest of the country.
While it is easy to speculate, Eurowings will surely be focusing on pushing out low-cost competitors EasyJet and RyanAir who have taken over in the light of the pandemic. But with the news that France has banned ultra-short domestic flights, could Eurowing’s have something to worry about?
That said, Brandenburg could be a hub for the airline to grow with updated facilities and lounges opening up shortly, and while a major blight for German engineers, it does have improved facilities over that of its predecessors Schoenefeld and Tegal.
What’s more, Eurowings with its Berlin hub can even be a springboard for international connecting flights (similar Worldwide by Easyjet), it even has award earning partnerships with Star alliance members like United to boot.