The largest major airlines in Germany are Lufthansa, Eurowings, and City Line while Condor, TuiFly, and Sunexpress are the top charter flight carriers.
Lufthansa remains by far the largest airline flying in Germany despite increasing competition from low-cost airlines. The second biggest airline in Germany is Eurowings, which is Lufthansa’s latest attempt to compete with low-cost airlines on the domestic and European short-haul market. Only Lufthansa, Lufthansa City Line, and Eurowings have notable domestic flights in Germany. Ryanair, Easyjet, and other low-cost airlines offer cheap flights from many German airports to other European destinations, especially Mediterranean beach resorts and national capitals. Major German charter airlines selling seats directly to regular passengers include TUIfly, Condor, and Sun Express Germany.
The continued unreliability of long-distance trains in Germany increased the popularity of domestic flights in Germany beyond just feeding passengers from other German cities into intercontinental flights from Frankfurt and Munich. North-south flights, especially to Stuttgart, are popular due to the otherwise long traveling time by train.
Fly Lufthansa — The Largest Airline in Germany
Lufthansa (LH) is by far the largest airline flying out of Germany and is the main brand in the larger Lufthansa Group which is amongst the largest airline companies in the world. Lufthansa operates flights in Germany under its own name as a full-service airline. It also uses Eurowings and Lufthansa City Airlines as budget and feeder airlines in Germany and mostly on European routes.
The Lufthansa Group controls other major European airlines including Brussels Airlines, Austrian, and Swiss. The Lufthansa Group operates over 400 aircraft and is responsible for more than half of all passengers flying via German airports. Lufthansa itself has a market share of just over a third and Eurowings around 15% of air passengers in Germany.
Lufthansa has more than 230 planes in operation and serves well over 200 destinations from Germany. Its main hub is Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) with Munich Airport (MUC) a major secondary hub — it actually serves more European destinations from Munich than from Frankfurt. Lufthansa also has major bases at Düsseldorf and Hamburg while traffic at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) is growing.
On intercontinental flights from and to Germany, Lufthansa is unmatched. On European flights, Lufthansa get some competition from low-cost airlines but many flights are on other airlines in the Lufthansa group.
Lufthansa Domestic Flights in Germany
Lufthansa’s domestic flights in Germany are often to feed passengers to major hubs for longer flights and are often code-share flights with other airlines in the groups such as Eurowings or City Airlines.
Top domestic routes for Lufthansa include the busy Frankfurt-Berlin route where it currently has no competition other than Deutsche Bahn trains and to a lesser extent Flixbus coaches. Domestic flights in Germany from the north to the south are also able to compete with trains in terms of time, such as Hamburg, Düsseldorf, or Berlin to München, although the Berlin-Munich train now takes only four hours.
Lufthansa is a founding member of the Star Alliance network. Its frequent flyer program Miles and More is also shared with other airlines in the larger Lufthansa Group.
Eurowings – Germany’s Second Largest Airline
Eurowings (EW) is the second-largest airline in Germany and the largest low-cost carrier. The airlines is fully owned by Lufthansa and is mostly used on domestic and European routes to compete with other budget carriers.
Eurowings flies domestic routes in Germany but most flights are international to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It offers a large number of destinations interesting to both business and holiday travelers, as destinations include many major city airports and not only holiday hot spots.
Eurowings flights in Germany include among others:
- Düsseldorf to Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Leipzig Halle, Munich, Sylt
- Cologne-Bonn to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich
- Hamburg to Cologne Bonn, Düsseldorf, Munich, and Stuttgart
- Berlin to Cologne, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart
- Bremen to Stuttgart
- Dortmund to Munich
- Dresden to Büsseldorf
- Leipzig to Düsseldorf
- Munich to Cologne Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Hamburg
- Stuttgart to Berlin, Bremen, Cologne-Bonn, Hamburg, Sylt
- Sylt to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart
As a Lufthansa-owned airline, Eurowings flights may often be booked as part of a Lufthansa intercontinental flight — mostly via Frankfurt or Munich — to bring travelers to smaller airports in Germany that Lufthansa does not serve under its own brand. Eurowings passengers qualify for Lufthansa Miles and More frequent flyer miles.
Easyjet — Cheap Flights to Germany
Easyjet received a major boost in Germany when it took over many of the routes and hardware of AirBerlin which went out of business in 2017. As a result, Easyjet became a major player in the German aviation market and competed with especially Eurowings on domestic routes inside Germany.
However, Easyjet has suspended all domestic flights in Germany but offers many flights to European destinations from German airports, especially from Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich.
Ryanair — Low-Cost Flights to Germany
Irish ultra-low-cost airline Ryanair has long been a major player in the German aviation market. Although the occasional domestic flight was offered in the past, the main destinations for Ryanair flights are holiday destinations popular with German travelers in especially the Mediterranean Sea areas. From larger German airports, Ryanair often flies to other major European cities in competition with especially Eurowings and EasyJet.
Although Frankfurt-Hahn (HHN) and Düsseldorf-Weeze (NRN) remain important in the Ryanair network, the days are long gone when travelers had to drag out to these distant airports in the middle of the night to secure cheap flights. Ryanair now also flies to major airports but the best deals remain for the smaller airports (and inconveniently early or late hours).
Main German Charter Airlines
Several charter airlines operate in Germany with some of the biggest also offering seats for direct sale to passengers. These often offer great deals to holidaymakers not on a package deal but willing to forego frequent flight availability (and sometimes odd traveling times) for low prices.
TUIfly (X3) belongs to Tui, the world’s largest holiday package company, but a large number of seats are available for regular passengers too. The majority of TUIfly flights are to popular holiday destinations in the Mediterranean region. TUIfly has around 30 aircraft in Germany.
Condor (DE), founded in 1955, is one of the oldest airlines in the world and operates around 40 planes. It has long been a very respectable and popular choice with flights from not only Germany to the Mediterranean but also to intercontinental destinations. Condor often flew to the USA and Canada too during the summer season.
SunExpress Germany (XG), co-owned by Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, flies from many German airports mostly to holiday destinations in Turkey, as well as other Mediterranean destinations in southern Europe and North Africa.
German airlines and brands that are no longer in operation include Germania and AirBerlin which went bankrupt, LTU that became part of AirBerlin, Hapag-Lloyd that was integrated into TUI fly, and the Germanwings brand which was discontinued by Lufthansa and mostly replaced by Eurowings.
