Interflug was the national airline of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) until German reunification. The airline was liquidated in 1991. Before that, its fleet of around 40 aircraft had served destinations mainly in Eastern Europe, but also throughout the socialist world as well as some destinations in Western countries.
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In 1954, the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) decided that the East German state needed its own airline. As a consequence, in 1955, the Deutsche Lufthansa der DDR was founded. As the West German airline had also been named Deutsche Lufthansa (after the original Lufthansa founded in 1926), struggles concerning the name began.
In the end, the International Court of Justice in The Hague decided that the GDR airline had to change its name.
On September 18, 1958, Interflug was founded as state-owned airline of the GDR, which also ran all the airports in East Germany. At that time Ilyushin IL-14 were used. Later, they were replaced by IL-18 and, from 1965, by Antonov AN-24. In 1968, the first Tupolev TU-134 were bought, giving the airline their first jet aircraft.
Originally, the route network focused on Eastern Europe and socialist states. Original destinations were for example Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, Budapest and Sofia and of course several East German cities.
Western destinations were added later, in order to get a share of wealthy Western customers, mainly West Berliners, who could save time and money by flying Interflug. Some examples for this network expansion are Vienna (1970), Copenhagen (1972) and Amsterdam and Helsinki in 1973. East Germans in general were not allowed to fly to these destinations.
With the introduction of the IL-62, destinations like Cuba, Iraq, Vietnam and Sierra Leone could be reached economically. It was the most efficient aircraft of Interflug at that time. Still, several accidents occurred, the most severe one in 1972, when 156 people died in a IL-62 plane crash near Berlin.
During the 1980s, Interflug faced problems with its Soviet aircraft fleet. Their planes were too loud, inefficient and unreliable to compete with Western airlines. Also, some destinations in Western Europe were at stake, as new noise guidelines came into action. Thirdly, Interflug owned no plane which managed the route Berlin – Havanna without a stop in Canada, which led to escapes of East Germans from time to time.
In the end, Interflug decided to buy three Airbus A310. Airbus saw a chance to get a bigger share in the socialist market and in 1989, Interflug received its most economical and modern aircraft.
Although now being a competitive and also comparably large airline (1.3 million passengers in 1983), Interflug did not survive the German reunification, as their main sponsor, the GDR government, did not exist anymore.
Lufthansa planned to merge with Interflug, but this was prohibited by the Federal monopolies commission of Germany. Plans by British Airways to purchase Interflug also failed. Eventually, Interflug was liquidated in 1991. The last flight led to Vienna and back in a TU-134 on April 30 of that year. Interflug's 32 aircraft were sold for 192.3 million US Dollars.
Interestingly, two of the three former Interflug Airbuses are today used as the official planes of the German chancellor.
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