Lufthansa team promotes codeshared flights in East Africa

UGANDA (eTN) – A high-powered team of Lufthansa German Airlines (LH) officials traveled across Eastern Africa last week to promote their codeshared flights out of Addis Ababa into the region.

UGANDA (eTN) – A high-powered team of Lufthansa German Airlines (LH) officials traveled across Eastern Africa last week to promote their codeshared flights out of Addis Ababa into the region. Both Lufthansa and Ethiopian Airlines (ET) presently fly five times a week between Frankfurt and Addis, and under the codeshare arrangements now in place, LH flight numbers are placed on a number of onwards flights from Addis to East African destinations like Entebbe, Kigali, Mombasa, and others, operated by ET on their B737-800 aircraft.

The team, comprising the LH commercial director for East Africa Ulrich Link, the general manager Ethiopia and East Africa Thorsten Windten, and a dedicated sales and marketing representative based in Addis, visited travel agents, corporate clients, and international organizations, giving a broad overview over their codeshared services via Addis. Most important was the seamless onward connection now available through a range of added Ethiopian Airlines flights, leaving to destinations across Eastern Africa after the late night arrival of the service from Frankfurt, while equally swift connections in Addis enroute to Frankfurt are, needless to say, also available.

The spanking new status of ET as applicant member of Star Alliance will be an added bonus for travelers on these flights, as the in-flight services and ground handling by Ethiopian is matching those of Lufthansa flights. As the codeshared services are taking hold in the market, and fed by the global Lufthansa network via their Frankfurt hub, gains greater passenger numbers, there is speculation that the presently 10 flights a week the 2 carriers operate may eventually expand into a “double daily” operation, which would give both morning and evening flights between the two cities, benefiting Ethiopian as the main East African partner airline operating the regional feeder operation.

Lufthansa and Ethiopian have a long-standing and very close working relationship, and their membership in Star Alliance, by far the global industry leader, will undoubtedly further strengthen ties and equally benefit both flag carriers.

In a related development, the LH team also highlighted during their visit to Uganda and Rwanda their codeshared flights with Brussels Airlines, which have seen passenger numbers boosted to the point of SN now flying 7 times a week into the East African region โ€“ 4 times each connecting Brussels with Entebbe and Kigali with the other flights route via Bujumbura and Nairobi. The only missing link in the region for Brussels Airlines, Tanzania, is presently served by Swiss via Nairobi, also a member of the Lufthansa Group.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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