Lufthansa is a quite unique airline in the European aviation landscape. What sets the German flag carrier apart from the rest of European airlines is its hub model and structure. Lufthansa is the only airline legacy, full service, carrier that operates flights from 2 super hubs.
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Munich and Frankfurt’s Role for Lufthansa
The German flag carrier at the moment is quite unique in Europe as it operates from 2 almost just as important hubs: Munich (MUC) and Frankfurt (FRA). Officially Frankfurt is the primary hub, however just take a look at the airline’s route map and you’ll see how Munich is almost just as important for the airline.
LH operates intercontinental flights from both Frankfurt and Munich. Also the airline feeds passengers to ULR flights in both airports with short intra-European flights. A further indication of how both airports are central to the carrier’s strategies.
But What About British Airways?
British Airways is the closest you can get in Europe to the Lufthansa double hub structure. However British Airways hubs, primary and secondary, are both located within the boundaries of London (LHR Heathrow and LGW Gatwick). Lufthansa is unique at the moment as its two hubs are located in 2 distinct cities.
Also another quite unique feature about the 2 LH hubs is the fact that neither of them serve the nation’s capital Berlin. Brandenburg airport is just an any other airport for the German flag carrier as it only has feeder flights to Frankfurt and Munich.
Why Is The 2 Hub Model So Unique?
The answer, as often is the case, is it’s expensive to run 2 hubs. Also in countries like ones found in Europe 2 hubs in a country are rarely sustainable. The old Alitalia used to run main intercontinental 2 hubs, Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino, however to have more efficient and streamlined operations the northern hub was abandoned.
In the US, where distances are huge, airlines need more hubs to effectively apply the hub and spoke model. In Europe distances are much smaller with most short haul travel is covered by HSR (high speed rail). Also the many major airlines ensure a high density of major aviation airports in the continent. In a landscape of this type, as you might have understood, it is unlikely that a full service airline can operate almost equal levels of operations in 2 distinct airports and cities.
How Can Lufthansa Sustain It?
Along with its own traffic Lufthansa also benefits of feeder traffic of its controlled airlines. In very rare occasions controlled airlines, such as Swiss or Austrian, go into direct competition with LH. Instead they serve traffic to the two German airports onto Lufthansa flights.
Other airline groups on the other hand are often formed by 2 almost equal status carriers that protect their own operations in their hubs. Take Air France-KLM the two airlines share operations but they don’t go out of each other’s way to feed passengers on the partner’s flights. Something that in the Lufthansa group happens much more often, making it possibile to sustain 2 main hubs within the German borders.
