Lufthansa will introduce a new route from FRA to AUS beginning 03 May 2019.

LH further announced to switch it's daily flight to KIX from FRA to MUC.

In addition the flights MUC-ICN, MUC-SIN will also be increased to 7/7.

Another new daily route will be MUC-BKK (likely to be taken over from EW).

https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/eng ... 4138d597cb

Also, more A 340-600 will be switched from FRA to MUC, more A 380 might follow in 2020.

Austin may work for Lufthansa because United is almost as strong as American in the area, and they've got a United Club lounge as well. With their JV across the pond, I'm sure this will have a code share with United as well.

I wonder if Condor will retreat from AUS then like they did SAN when LUFTHANSA started service

How many A380 gates does MUC have? Nice to see more flights being added, MUC is a great airport.

Blerg wrote:

How many A380 gates does MUC have? Nice to see more flights being added, MUC is a great airport.

MUC is highly congested and nearly out of slots. That is why they are increasing the size of the aircraft there. This will be a trend until a 3rd runway gets built.

The Austin part is unsurprising given Lh history of following Condor. I don’t understand the part where the 346 and 388 both go to Munich

Interesting to see the KIX switch. I wonder if they'll bring the 747 to MUC like they have on FRA.

Congrats to AUS! I can't imagine DE returning next Summer with this announcement as was the case with SAN.

What is the timings for FRA-AUS flight?

I guess LH is following through on its threats to move away a bit from FRA. In a way, it does make sense to split the traffic between FRA and MUC. FRA is well suited for North American connections in Europe, and MUC for Asia, since I assume there are few people traveling from North America to Asia via Germany.

Good for AUS, and really strengthens further LH's TATL routes.

Also buried in the press release is more about OS and increased TATL frequencies--does anybody know what that might entail? Or any additional news on LX?

simpv wrote:

I guess LH is following through on its threats to move away a bit from FRA. In a way, it does make sense to split the traffic between FRA and MUC. FRA is well suited for North American connections in Europe, and MUC for Asia, since I assume there are few people traveling from North America to Asia via Germany.

It's the other way around. Although these days it's getting harder to distinguish, MUC is the European hub while FRA is the intercontinental hub.

What will FRA-AUS be flown on? A333, A359, or A343 I'd imagine are the three options.

BWIAirport wrote:

What will FRA-AUS be flown on? A333, A359, or A343 I'd imagine are the three options.

almost certainly on A343...
timing will probably be departure FRA around 10-11am and ex. AUS sometime in the afternoon with early arrival back to FRA.

I don't rate MUC as a transfer point. Prone to delays and many missed connections. So good luck to LH on this. Let's hope they don't time their connections so tight.

stylo777 wrote:

BWIAirport wrote:

What will FRA-AUS be flown on? A333, A359, or A343 I'd imagine are the three options.

almost certainly on A343...
timing will probably be departure FRA around 10-11am and ex. AUS sometime in the afternoon with early arrival back to FRA.

I have no expertise here, but would an A343 be too much capacity? My guess would the the A333 or A359.

I have no idea of the cabin layouts or how premium-light or premium-heavy LH's aircraft are, so I'm sure this will play a role as well.

NZ321 wrote:

I don't rate MUC as a transfer point. Prone to delays and many missed connections. So good luck to LH on this. Let's hope they don't time their connections so tight.

I think the situation in FRA is far worse than in MUC. Both of their hubs are getting too crowded for the amount of traffic they handle.

What is the status of the third runway at MUC?

Where is the forum member that was arguing with me not even a couple of weeks ago saying that including AUS in the pool of possible next TATL options was preposterous? The reason LH is launching this flight is that there is SO MUCH MONEY in this town right now. Airplanes are often full and fares are very high (I often fly out of IAH to get better fares when traveling with family). This flight will be a huge success barring a very deep recession in the very near future.

DFWAviator76 wrote:

stylo777 wrote:

BWIAirport wrote:

What will FRA-AUS be flown on? A333, A359, or A343 I'd imagine are the three options.

almost certainly on A343...
timing will probably be departure FRA around 10-11am and ex. AUS sometime in the afternoon with early arrival back to FRA.

I have no expertise here, but would an A343 be too much capacity? My guess would the the A333 or A359.

I have no idea of the cabin layouts or how premium-light or premium-heavy LH's aircraft are, so I'm sure this will play a role as well.

A333: 42 / 28 / 185
A343: 30 / 28 / 221 or 18 / 21 / 261 in the high density config operated by LH Cityline
A359: 48 / 21 / 224 or 36 / 21 / 262, but the A350s are currently all based in MUC

DFWAviator76 wrote:

I have no expertise here, but would an A343 be too much capacity? My guess would the the A333 or A359.

The A333 is an A343 with 2 engines on furlough
The A359 is one size step up from the A3[34]3 capacity

Fantastic news, does anyone know if this service will be year round and how many times per week? Hopefully this doesn’t force out Condor but I have a gut feeling Condor is packing their bags.

BWIAirport wrote:

What will FRA-AUS be flown on? A333, A359, or A343 I'd imagine are the three options.

Did you seriously think they’ll send an A350 to AUS?

Blerg wrote:

What is the status of the third runway at MUC?

still good potato and grain harvests

WIederling wrote:

DFWAviator76 wrote:

I have no expertise here, but would an A343 be too much capacity? My guess would the the A333 or A359.

The A333 is an A343 with 2 engines on furlough
The A359 is one size step up from the A3[34]3 capacity

LH's A359 has about the same number of seats as the A346, and a bit less in one config type. The main difference is that the A346 is more premium heavy and as such it has a F class cabin. But for the most part, the A359 has been replacing the A346.

I'd say LH/StarAlliance completely snookered DL/SkyTeam on this one. Congrats LH.
(I will say the economy is red hot, hence announcements like these, from AUS and TPA for instance. Any major economic retreat and these routes will be gone...)

peanuts wrote:

I'd say LH/StarAlliance completely snookered DL/SkyTeam on this one. Congrats LH.
(I will say the economy is red hot, hence announcements like these, from AUS and TPA for instance. Any major economic retreat and these routes will be gone...)

Agreed, congrats LH and AUS! I don’t know what’s gonna happen now with the speculated Delta AMS flight. Might just be gone with the wind.

I hope DE and LH both stay in AUS, I remember at SAN DE immediately packed their bags.

This is really not surprising. AUS is a hot market with no hub carrier. No reason they can't try to go and fight for some of that Europe and Indian bound O&D. AUS flyers don't have to much loyalty at this point, it's anyones market. I think Star is smart to give it a shot. If skyteam really does expand there, this will probably suffer but as of right now, i see no reason they cant get in there and try!

[list=][/list]

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

This is really not surprising. AUS is a hot market with no hub carrier. No reason they can't try to go and fight for some of that O&D. AUS flyers dont have to much loyalty at this point, its anyones market

I saw LH coming to AUS as a strong possibility for some time now, even as others were doubting. Agreed it’s anyones game right now in AUS.

UGH !!!!!!!!!!!!! and still no MUC-DTW

Well done AUS! I guess it’s safe to say that we won’t be seeing DE back in AUS next summer.

It would be awesome if AUS could gain non-stop service to Asia.

That's great news for AUS, but I was really hoping for a flight to STL first. With the addition of Bayer due to the Monsanto takeover, along with AB InBev, Merck, Nestlé, JAB etc., Lufthansa has plenty of companies in its catchment area for the flight to work.

airbazar wrote:

MUC is highly congested and nearly out of slots. That is why they are increasing the size of the aircraft there. This will be a trend until a 3rd runway gets built.

That's quite an exaggeration. Lufthansa will be able to grow at MUC for the next ten years: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/u ... 10347.html

Can't help being reminded of FI/WW at CLE. IIRC FI announced CLE, but with no flight details for a few days, presumably to preempt WOW. Perhaps LH heard that another carrier was planning to add AUS and wanted to scoop them? Usually one would expect AUS to have a big event for a service announcement of this magnitude.

Excellent move by Lufthansa. As I said a few weeks ago - with AA adding DFW-MUC, Lufthansa's best options were either to try to slug it out at DFW, or try to siphon some feeder traffic via AUS. Well done.

I wonder how this will affect the IAH flight, probably not by much. I suppose IAH does receive traffic from Austin for the LH flight.

From DTW, there is zero feed to east Asia from FRA. It’s either FRA, Europe, ME, India, or Africa as final destinations.

AUS continues its stunning and epic rise. Its growth will continue indefinitely.

cityshuttle wrote:

LH further announced to switch it's daily flight to KIX from FRA to MUC.

In addition the flights MUC-ICN, MUC-SIN will also be increased to 7/7.

Another new daily route will be MUC-BKK (likely to be taken over from EW).

very big and interesting moves here. definitely some great expansion from LH at MUC, and very curious that the KIX route is being moved over. are there more ties between MUC and KIX or is LH just reallocating resources? KIX-FRA has been a 744 for a little while

if MUC is becoming a focus of Asia services, have to wonder what other new routes could come.

Austin airport's website confirms that Condor will be back again next year flying May 30, 2019 to September 26, 2019. The airline had very high load factors this season with competition from British Airways and Norwegian, and it will be interesting how they do with competition from Lufthansa as well!

ShinyAndChrome wrote:

Interesting to see the KIX switch. I wonder if they'll bring the 747 to MUC like they have on FRA.

This kind of switch is usually due to demand from influential corporate accounts that take up significant traffic. I'm guessing the auto industry business travelers prefer MUC.

Wow great! This definitely caught me by surprise. Good to see another link added to our route map (from AUS). Although I likely wouldn’t be flying it in the near future if ever, it’s still that; another option and a bit more prestige.

Interesting now that we have Cóndor and Lufthansa flying the same route. I suppose seasonal would still work. I do recall LH announcing service around the time DE was ending service (I forget which was first).

Congrats AUS! More international traffic from legacy airlines like BA and LH shows great potential for the market. Any details on equipment and timing of flights?

Considering LH did the A380 FRA/MUC switch in Summer 2018, I guess that showed significant growth and they are ready to invest further in MUC.

simpv wrote:

I guess LH is following through on its threats to move away a bit from FRA. In a way, it does make sense to split the traffic between FRA and MUC. FRA is well suited for North American connections in Europe, and MUC for Asia, since I assume there are few people traveling from North America to Asia via Germany.

Good for AUS, and really strengthens further LH's TATL routes.

Also buried in the press release is more about OS and increased TATL frequencies--does anybody know what that might entail? Or any additional news on LX?

Lufthansa does play a pretty large role in the US-India market.

I was just in Austin this week for work, and was thinking the city might be able to support another large carrier to Europe. Anecdotal, but walked past two 20somethings conversing about job opportunities ( I assume tech) where the salaries were between 80-90k. When businesses can pay young people that, they can afford to send their employees wherever they need to.
The DFW flight operates as an A330. IAH operates as an A380, but down gauges this winter to a 748. I would think AUS will get the A330, and IAH will remain a 748 next summer.

How long till PR comes in?

gatibosgru wrote:

How long till PR comes in?

Probably October 4th when the flight is open for booking.

As a BA fan, BA is always the first to explore new destination in US and LH is following what BA's doing such as SAN, SJC, etc.

IAHWorldflyer wrote:

I was just in Austin this week for work, and was thinking the city might be able to support another large carrier to Europe. Anecdotal, but walked past two 20somethings conversing about job opportunities ( I assume tech) where the salaries were between 80-90k. When businesses can pay young people that, they can afford to send their employees wherever they need to.
The DFW flight operates as an A330. IAH operates as an A380, but down gauges this winter to a 748. I would think AUS will get the A330, and IAH will remain a 748 next summer.

Yeah, Austin's a young city with lot's of tech workers fleeing bay area prices. In the last 10 years most of the houses in my neighborhood have doubled in value, unemployment is near 0 but lot's of businesses are having trouble attracting workers. Overall thing are on the up and up but I'm curious to how a recession might hit Austin.

Much like what happened in SAN, there will probably be a quiet discontinuation of the DE flight sometime around the end of October at AUS. They cancelled SAN about a month and a half after LH announced service. DE generally doesn't try to compete with LH for the same pool of traffic at non-Star Alliance hub markets. SEA is the only real exception I can think of due to the codeshare with Alaska. The airport may be saying the service will return, but that is not guaranteed at this point. Heck, they haven't even mentioned the LH flight yet. Still, getting LH is a far greater thing than retaining DE.

No point is over-saturating a route that saw a decline in passengers this year. Pax numbers for DE were down 15.9% through the end of July without LH competition.

Its good to see LH expand its long haul Asia Pacific presence out of MUC as I'm sure they have been feeling the pinch here with their market share being rapidly poached away by EK, QR, EY and WY.

MUC-BKK daily nonstop will hurt all the main 4 Gulf carriers a bit as BKK is one of the top 3 feeder destinations for not only MUC but also few other EU tier 1 cities. In 2017, demand on MUC-BKK-MUC round trip grew to 267,000 passengers versus 250,000 in 2016.

MUC-ICN-MUC grew from 82,000 in 2016 to 88,000 round trip pax in 2017 whilst MUC-SIN v.v. grew from 83,000 in 2016 to 99,000 in 2017.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Much like what happened in SAN, there will probably be a quiet discontinuation of the DE flight sometime around the end of October at AUS. They cancelled SAN about a month and a half after LH announced service. DE generally doesn't try to compete with LH for the same pool of traffic at non-Star Alliance hub markets. SEA is the only real exception I can think of due to the codeshare with Alaska. The airport may be saying the service will return, but that is not guaranteed at this point. Heck, they haven't even mentioned the LH flight yet. Still, getting LH is a far greater thing than retaining DE.

No point is over-saturating a route that saw a decline in passengers this year. Pax numbers for DE were down 15.9% through the end of July without LH competition.

In July, Condor operated flights to Austin using a mix of the 263 and 241 seat 767. With an average of 252 seats on each flight and 6,804 available seats, Condor filled 5,707 of them creating an approximate 84 percent load factor. Both British Airways and Norwegian also had excellent numbers, both with load factors over 80 percent this summer. For BA, numbers were up 58 percent in June on the AUS flight thanks to the 747 equipment upgrade.

Condor had 33 percent more passengers than the previous period in July thanks to its new flight. Yes, June was a little rough with an average 65 percent load factor, but the 15 percent drop is because this year Condor began the season at the end of May instead of the beginning of May like they did in 2017, which resulted in more seats available. They have already published next year's schedule May 3-Sept. 26 operating Mondays and Thursdays.

Like Norwegian, Condor is attracting a completely different customer base in Austin than British Airways and Lufthansa. Time will tell, but for now Condor will be operating next season. Regarding Norwegian, the only reason they are seasonal is due to the RR engine issues. Initially, they were to operate year-round flights but they will pause flights on Oct. 28 and resume on March 1, 2019. When the next season of service commences, it may be year-round (not confirmed).

BA will also go from 747 to 77W (first regularly scheduled 77W flight for the airport!) on Oct. 28 and will return to the 747 next April/May.

PHOTOSMK wrote:

Condor had 33 percent more passengers than the previous period in July thanks to its new flight. Yes, June was a little rough with an average 65 percent load factor, but the 15 percent drop is because this year Condor began the season at the end of May instead of the beginning of May like they did in 2017, which resulted in more seats available. They have already published next year's schedule May 3-Sept. 26 operating Mondays and Thursdays.

All fine and well, but SAN had an 82% load factor for DE through the entirety of the Summer travel season and DE had no problem abandoning that route post-haste when LH moved in. A 65% load factor during what is typically one of the peak travel months for TATL service is not very convincing. Maybe I'll be surprised, but it goes against the DE modus operandi so far.