Germanwings

This article is about the low-cost carrier of the Lufthansa Group. For the 1980s airline, see German Wings. For wings of the German Air Force, see Category:Luftwaffe Wings.
Germanwings
IATA ICAO Call sign
4U GWI GERMANWINGS
Founded1997 (1997)
(as a division of Eurowings)
Commenced operations2002 (2002)
(spin-off from Eurowings)
Ceased operations7 April 2020 (2020-04-07)[1]
Operating bases
Frequent-flyer program
Fleet size33
Parent companyLufthansa Group
HeadquartersCologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Key peopleExecutive Board:
  • Michael Knitter
  • Francesco Sciortino
Websitewww.eurowings.com

Germanwings GmbH was[1] a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa[2] which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, Munich Airport and further bases at Hannover Airport and Dortmund Airport.[3]

Germanwings operated independently as Lufthansa's low-cost carrier until October 2015, when Lufthansa decided to fully transfer the brand identity of its low cost short haul-product to Eurowings. After 2016, Germanwings operated as a wet lease operator for its sister company Eurowings, with the Germanwings branding being phased out at this time. The IATA code "4U" continued to operate under the Eurowings brand until March 2018, when it was abandoned and replaced with the Eurowings designator EW.[4] Germanwings was closed and merged back into Eurowings in April 2020 as part of a broad restructuring and the Covid 19 pandemic.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference reuters.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Imprint Archived 2014-10-09 at the Wayback Machine." Germanwings. Retrieved on April 29, 2010. "Head Office: Germanwings-Str. 2 51147 Cologne"
  3. ^ "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. 2007-04-03. p. 86.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference 4UIATA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).