German carrier Lufthansa was well pleased with its Irish business last year. Indeed, 2014 was another record-breaking year for Lufthansa in Ireland with almost 377,000 passengers travelling in and out of Dublin – an increase of just over 5% on 2013. The figures also show that around three-quarters of Lufthansa passengers from Dublin continue to take advantage of the quick and easy onward connections to the airline’s worldwide network through the airline’s Frankfurt and Munich hubs.
Announcing the figures during a media briefing in Dublin, Christian Schindler, Lufthansa’s Regional Director UK, Ireland & Iceland, said: “Ireland has continued to shine as a key market for Lufthansa within our network. The increased frequencies of our Dublin to Munich service have played a significant part in the growth and this will continue as the service become daily this summer.”
Christian went on to say that the carrier will continue to work with Irish travel agents because they provide added value to their customers.
“The figures prove once again that discerning travellers appreciate the way Lufthansa has responded to the challenges of the travel market in the face of ever-increasing competition from low-cost airlines. To maintain the leading position in our market we must be better than anyone else in terms of reliability and innovation at a competitive price. This is why Lufthansa continually reviews pricing on its routes to Frankfurt and Munich.
“In addition, the latest figures show Lufthansa has recorded the best figures for punctuality in its history, with over 85% of all flights leaving Frankfurt and Munich within 15 minutes of scheduled departure time, and we continue to enhance the onboard experience for customers.
“The large number of Dublin passengers who take onward connections can now have the added option of our high-quality Premium Economy product on our long-haul services. We are also fitting 20 Airbus A321s with a revolutionary inflight entertainment programme developed by Lufthansa Systems. This enables passengers to connect their own laptop, tablet or smartphone via wi-fi to the inflight infotainment service offering a wide range of films, TV series, music, games and flight information.
“Before the flight, passengers simply download the Lufthansa entertainment app or the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in for notebooks for free – like the whole programme itself – at http://LH.com/entertainment-app-en
“Lufthansa passengers know that when they book with Lufthansa the price they pay includes the ability to take hand-luggage on board and check in one piece of baggage, assigned seats, good quality food and drink on board the aircraft, with no hidden extra cost. We will continue to offer the shortest possible onward connection times to our worldwide network through our hubs of Frankfurt and Munich.”
The airline currently has 260 new aircraft on order.
In 2014 the most popular onward destinations for Lufthansa’s Dublin travellers included Moscow, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Kiev, Belgrade, Lagos, Shenyang,Tokyo, Beijing, Larnaca and St Petersburg.
Overall, airlines in the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa and Swiss) carried a total of almost 485,000 passengers in and out of Dublin last year.
