Berlin / Cologne. The budget airline euro Wings is the largest construction site of the Lufthansa Group. The airline has fierce competition with rivals Easyjet, Ryanair and Wizz Air – and has only been making losses since the takeover of large parts of the insolvent Air Berlin.
This should end in 2021. Passengers are now feeling the radical steps: Eurowings is giving up a number of unprofitable routes, increasing fees and canceling services.
Eurowings: Your preferred seat now costs money
So far, passengers could also use the cheapest Basic fare at check-in for free seat choose – whether at the airport counter or online. In future, the space will be assigned automatically. If you want to reserve a place, you have to do it online – and pay for it.
That costs at least four euros on domestic German flights and significantly more on European routes. According to Eurowings, this does not apply to people with reduced mobility, unaccompanied children and, if available, families with small children.
Eurowings: That changes with hand luggage
Another limitation concerns that carry-on baggage: Passengers with a basic ticket may only take one piece measuring 55 x 40 x 23 cm on board. Until now, a smaller second bag was also allowed. This makes Eurowings even more generous than Ryanair and Wizz Air – the two low-cost airlines only allow small handbags at no extra charge.
In 2019, Eurowings had already canceled free snacks and drinks for the Smart tariff, which includes seat reservation, a suitcase and priority boarding.
Eurowings is canceling these routes
Eurowings is also separating from a number of unprofitable routes. This mainly affects Berlin-Tegel, but also Düsseldorf and Cologne / Bonn. At the turn of the year, Eurowings discontinued up to four daily flights between Berlin and Munich. The route had only been taken up in spring 2019.
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In return, the parent company flies Lufthansa a Eurowings spokesman explains, more often and with larger machines between the metropolises. The airline had already discontinued the Berlin – Nuremberg and Berlin – Karlsruhe / Baden-Baden lines in 2019.
At the beginning of the summer flight schedule at the end of March, Eurowings is also canceling several flights to the Balkans:
- Stuttgart-Ohrid,
- Stuttgart-Tivat,
- Berlin-Zagreb,
- Berlin-Pula,
- Dusseldorf-Zagreb,
- Dusseldorf-Ohrid,
- Cologne Osijek
- and Hanover-Rijeka.
The Lufthansa subsidiary also uses smaller aircraft on some routes or reduces the number of weekly flights. “The adjustments are part of a routine review and adjustment of our route network in terms of economy and utilization,” said the spokesman.
In contrast, the airline is now taking flights from Düsseldorf to Cyprus and La Palma in summer and from Stuttgart to Belgrade.
Higher fees for rebooking
Anyone wishing to rebook a long-haul Eurowings flight has previously paid 90 euros. Changes will cost 150 euros in the future. It is a matter of harmonization within the Lufthansa Group, the spokesman explains on request.
Airline gets a new boss
As Thorsten Dirks Coming to Eurowings from Telefonica Germany in 2017, Air Berlin wasn’t broke yet and the Lufthansa subsidiary wasn’t even half as big as it is today. A little later, the non-industry manager had to manage the integration of 77 aircraft and thousands of employees from Air Berlin’s legacy. He succeeded in doing so – but he couldn’t get the airline into the black. Now Dirks had to vacate his chair at the Eurowings headquarters in Cologne. He is responsible for digitization on the Group Executive Board.
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New to the top of the airline is March 1st Jens Bishop, The previous head of the holiday airline Sun Express, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, is to bring the troubled airline into profit by 2021. Bishop has been working for Lufthansa for 30 years.
New planes
New aircraft, which are much more efficient than the previous ones, are also intended to reduce costs. A320neo machines use 17 percent less kerosene thanks to new engines. Eurowings expects the first examples in 2021. By the end of last year, Eurowings had decommissioned its longest-serving, almost 30-year-old machine.
Eurowings flies on time again
After all – according to company information, Eurowings passengers can get to their destination on time more quickly than has been the case in the meantime. In Chaossommer 2018, the airline’s reputation suffered significantly due to a particularly large number of delays and cancellations. The year after the Air Berlin bankruptcy there was a huge problem. In the meantime, 93 percent of the flights are on schedule. In Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne and Stuttgart in particular, Eurowings has recently been more reliable than rivals Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz Air.
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