VP of Lufthansa sees great potential in the Munich-Tel Aviv route

Joachim Steinbach,  Vice President for Sales & Services for Luthansa in Southeast Europe, Africa, Middle East and Pakistan, arrived in Israel for the launch of the service between Munich and Tel Aviv after a six year break.

At a press conference held in Tel Aviv, Ofer Kisch the General Manager of Lufthansa in Israel remarked that he and his team had worked tirelessly in order to obtain permission from the Ministry of Transport to renew the Tel Aviv-Munich route. This service stopped operating in 2003 as a result of the war in Iraq and the ongoing intifada which resulted in a significant fall in ticket sales on the route.

Steinbach said that despite the slowdown in the market as a result of the world financial crisis, renewing the service between Munich and Tel Aviv was an opportunity not to be missed.  He added that renewing the route was an expression of Lufthansa's committment to the tourism industry and to the Israeli market.  He said that Lufthansa saw this period as an opportunity to invest and strengthen to ensure its place as a leading airline for the future.  During 2009 Lufthansa will receive 50 new aircraft, part of a program to upgrade its fleet by 2016 costing around 16 billion Euros.

With the addition of the 4 weekly flights to Munich and the existing 14 to Frankfurt, Lufthansa have increased their capacity to Israel by 20 percent.  Steinbach added "Lufthansa will continue to pay attention to the needs of its customers. Last year we registered a new record with 57 million passengers."   With 971 Bavarian companies with connections to Israeli, the German state recently opened a representative office in Israel.

Kisch commented that Lufthansa were ready for a price war with its competitors. He added "the prices that we are offering are very attractive, but other airlines will attempt to compete to gain customers. We have taken into account that competition on the route will be fierce."

Coinciding with Lufthansa's flight to Munich, El Al  announced that they would be offering a fare of $289 on flights to Munich until the end of June. During the coming months El Al will also increase flights to Munich via its subsidiary company Sun d'Or.