Lufthansa hails record year for passengers

LUFTHANSA, the German airline currently serving five destinations from Manchester, said passenger numbers for 2011 rose 8.5% to 697,915.

The carrier, which is due to add a sixth route to Berlin in June, already flies to Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart.

Christian Schindler, Lufthansa’s newly-appointed general manager UK & Ireland, said: “Our passenger growth out of Manchester in 2011 proves that the vast majority of travellers still want the added value they receive from a full service airline.

“As well as offering passengers quick and easy access to many of the main German cities we continue to ensure that our flights to and from Manchester offer the shortest possible onward connection times to our worldwide network through our main hubs of Frankfurt and Munich as well as our developing mini-hub at Dusseldorf.”

Overall in 2011, a total of 106.3 million passengers chose to fly with the airlines that make up the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, bmi and Germanwings) – also a new record.