Airlines Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines join forces in Africa

To offer a harmonized product and services, Lufthansa Group will now fully integrate their sales activities in Africa. As Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Edelweiss, Eurowings, Lufthansa and Swiss will now align their sales structures, passengers will experience increased flexibility. The decision was made under the premise “one face to the customer”.

Brussels Airlines´ long-haul network mainly serves sub-Saharan destinations. In fact, the carrier decrees over a dense network of 23 destinations on the continent. Therefore, all sales activities from the Group will be located in Brussels at the headquarter of Brussels Airlines.

Christina Foerster, CEO of Brussels Airlines said: “With our long-standing experience in the African market and our very engaged employees, we perfectly complement the Lufthansa Group sales presence in Africa and especially in the Sub-Saharan part of the continent. Our joint customers will now benefit from an increased flexibility thanks to a global offer, covering the entire Lufthansa Group Africa network.”

Dr. Stefan Kreuzpaintner, Vice President Sales EMEA of the Lufthansa Group added: “Customers will benefit from a single point of contact and a continued local presence. This enables us to be close to our markets and customers, to serve their specific needs and to develop harmonized offerings in the future [...] Our sales colleagues can now offer all our brands, with joint products and packages”.

Lufthansa Group has also decided, that it will focus on serving more routes to Africa. Stating in the 2018/19 winter flight schedule, Lufthansa will change its Frankfurt – Addis Ababa connection to a non-stop flight. This will reduce travel time by more than two hours. Moreover, Austrian will start flying between Vienna and Cape Town two times a week.

Today already, Lufthansa Group is the second biggest European airline group in Africa. It offers 311 weekly flights between the two continents. Over the course of the full acquisition of Brussels Airlines by Lufthansa Group in 2017, the route network will be increased from 21 to 44 destinations.

Brussels Airlines is the flag carrier of Belgium. It offers flights from Brussels to 122 destinations. The carrier offers 24 long-haul destinations to Africa, 90 routes to cities in Europe, 3 to North America and flights to Tel Aviv and Mumbai. Brussels Airlines operates with a fleet of nearly 60 aircraft, including Airbus A319, A320, A330-200 and A330-300, A340-300 (operated for Eurowings) and Sukhoi SuperJet 100s.