Lufthansa is the largest German airline and the second largest airline in Europe (behind Air France-KLM). The Lufthansa Group operates more than 400 aircraft and employs nearly 100,000 people world-wide. The airline is Star Alliance member and reaches almost 200 destinations all over the world.
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Lufthansa was originally founded on January 6, 1926, in Berlin, following a merger of Deutsche Aero Lloyd (DAL) and Junkers Luftverkehr, forming the Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft (DLHA). Its logo was contributed by DAL, the company’s colours yellow and blue by DLHA. The name was changed to Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft in 1933. On April 6, 1926, 162 aircraft began their scheduled service.
After its biggest network expansion in 1939 (e.g. Lufthansa operated flights to Bangkok and Santiago de Chile), the war-time flight service was limited to Europe. In 1945, all services stopped and the company ceased to exist in the following years.
After the allies had relieved post-war sanctions, the „Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf" (LUFTAG) was founded in Cologne on January 6, 1953, and renamed Deutsche Lufthansa AG in 1954. Its main hub became and remains until today Frankfurt International Airport.
With the introduction of the Boeing 707 in 1960, Lufthansa began to change their fleet from propeller to jet planes. The last propeller-driven planes were abolished in 1971. Later, Boeing 727s, 737s and 747s were bought, as well as McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and the new Airbus A-300s.
In 1990, 45 years after the end of WWII, Lufthansa for the first time was able to fly to into Berlin, the capital of the reunited Germany. Lufthansa remained the national airline of the Federal Republic of Germany until 1994. After that year it was privatized in several steps, this process being completed in 1997.
In the same year, Lufthansa together with Air Canada, SAS, Thai Airways and United Airlines formed Star Alliance, the first and biggest airline alliance.
In 2001, Lufthansa ordered 15 Airbus A380. In 2003, the company opened the new terminal 2 at Munich International Airport, in order to relieve its main hub Frankfurt. It became one of the first terminals partially owned by an airline in Europe.
In 2005, Swiss was bought, continuing its independent service as part of the Lufthansa trust.
The airline placed an order for 20 Boeing 747-8s in December 2006, becoming launch customer of this aircraft.
In 2006, 53.4 million passengers flew with Lufthansa to almost 200 destinations.
The average age of Lufthansa’s around 250 aircraft was 10.1 years in 2006.
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