Lufthansa was founded on January 6 1953 and commenced operations on April 1 1955. It is the flag carrier of Germany. After combining its subsidiaries, it is the second-largest airline in Europe regarding the passengers carried. It is one of the five founding members of the Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance formed in 1997.

The airline company has its service, and it also has its subsidiary passenger airlines, Swiss International Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings.

The headquarters of Lufthansa is in Cologne. Lufthansa Aviation centre is the primary hub at Frankfurt airport, and the secondary hub is at Munich Airport.

The company had been politically connected to the government of Nazi Germany, and post the World War 2, it got dissolved.

History

The airline company traced its history to 1926, when Deutsche LuftHansa A.G. was formed in Berlin. It was Germany’s flag carrier until 1945. Lufthansa won the approval to start scheduled domestic flights linking Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Dusseldorf and Hamburg on April 1 1955. International flights also started on May 15 1955, to Paris, Madrid and London. In August 1958, fifteen Lufthansa 1049Gs and 1649s left Germany for Canada and the United States. The airline company also initiated a marketing campaign to sell itself to West Germany. It also faced a few challenges, which involved encouraging travelers to consider visiting the country in the wake of World War2. It also offered services to other nations via the Frankfurt airport hub.

The airline company limited public relations efforts and became a significant purveyor of West Germany’s image abroad in 1963.

East Germany tried to establish an airline company in 1955 using its name. However, it resulted in a legal dispute with West Germany. Thus, it established Interflug as its national airline in the year 1963.

The 1960s: Introduction of jetliners

Lufthansa ordered four Boeing 707s in 1958 and started jet flights from Frankfurt to New York City in March 1960. The airline company also introduced the Boeing 727 in 1964, and it began the Polar route from Frankfurt to Tokyo via Anchorage. The company ordered 21 Boeing 737s in February 1965. These aircraft went into service in 1968. The first customer for Boeing was Lufthansa. It was also one of the four buyers of the 737-100s.

1970s-1980s

Lufthansa introduced DC-10-30 on November 12 1973 and the first Airbus A300 in 1976. Lufthansa and Swissair became the launch customers in 1979 for the Airbus A320.

The company also began its fleet modernization program on June 29 1985.

Lufthansa also teamed up with Air France, Scandinavian Airlines and Iberia, and it founded Amandeus and I.T. Company which would enable travel agencies to sell the founders and the other airline products from a single system.

1990s-2000s

Berlin became a Lufthansa destination again on October 28 1990. Lufthansa also made some significant structural changes, and they aimed at creating independent companies such as Lufthansa Systems, Lufthansa Technik and Lufthansa Cargo in 1995. The airline company also participated in the German business foundation initiative and addressed the class action lawsuits against German companies for World war two misdeeds.

Air one became a Lufthansa partner in 2000, and nearly all the Air One flights were code-shared with Lufthansa until Alitalia purchased Air One. The company has a perfect track for posting profits.

The airline company announced an order for 15 Airbus A380S on December 6 2001, and the A380 fleet was used for all the long-haul flights. The Swiss International Air lines was purchased by Lufthansa’s holding company on March 22 2005.

Corporate affairs

The airline company was a state-owned enterprise until 1994 and it publicly traded on all the German stock exchanges since 1966. The company also started using the Xetra system and Lansdowne Partners International Ltd and Blackrock Inc were the largest shareholder in the Lufthansa Group at the year-end.