Airline increases flight frequencies and adds new destinations, claiming seat load factors remain high (349 words)

Published: 10/23/2001

Lufthansa is to introduce its winter schedule for Russia and CIS on 28th October 2001 with 89 flights a week, despite plans to suspend some routes temporarily, through increased frequencies on other Russian routes. The suspended routes include flights from Moscow to Hamburg via Berlin and from Moscow to Düsseldorf, which Sven Henrik Detring, Regional Manager for Lufthansa in Moscow and Central Russia, says is due to low demand. Even a temporary suspension should still please Aeroflot, the other operator on the route. According to Detring, the suspension of flights will be rescinded when the airline judges the market conditions to be "more favourable". The airline claims that its current four flights a day between Frankfurt - Moscow and daily flights from Munich - Moscow remain well patronised and will remain unchanged. Flights from Frankfurt to St. Petersburg are to be increased from 13 to 14 a week in the winter schedule. The three flights per week on the Frankfurt - Samara route will be retained. Elsewhere, the airline reports that, despite the crisis facing the industry, seat load factors remain high, particularly to the Russian regions where traffic continues to grow. The airline is therefore planning to increase flights on its Frankfurt - Kazan route from two to three flights a week, with an increase from two to three flights on the route from Frankfurt to Perm. The flights will stop in Nizhny Novgorod instead of Ekaterinburg, with Frankfurt to Ekaterinburg operated independently three times per week. In an effort to improve service to its passengers, Lufthansa has also brought forward the departure times from Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara in order to allow passengers better transit with onward Lufthansa flights from Frankfurt. Frequencies on CIS routes remain unchanged. The company operates five flights a week on the Frankfurt - Almaty route, three flights a week from Frankfurt to Baku, three flights a week Frankfurt - Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, seven flights a week from Frankfurt to Minsk and seven flights a week on the Frankfurt - Kiev route.

Article ID: 2851