Lufthansa Group low-cost (LCC) subsidiary Eurowings opened a base in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, May 24, and will launch its first Airbus A320 flight May 25 to Bremen, Germany.

The carrier bases four A320s at Palma and has plans to operate to 23 destinations, including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin-Tegel, Stuttgart, Hannover, Dortmund, Hamburg, Munich, Friedrichshafen, Leipzig/Halle, Paderborn/Lippstadt, Dresden, Saarbrucken, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Nuremberg, Munster/Osnabrück (Germany), Basel (Switzerland), Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and Graz (Austria).

“During the high season, Eurowings will operate 300 weekly flights to Palma, some of them with a widebody Airbus A330,” CCO Oliver Wagner told ATW aboard the Vienna-Palma A320 ferry flight. By next year, Eurowings will base six A320s at Palma.”

Wagner said Eurowings plans to operate 6,000 flights to and from the Spanish island annually; a total of 1 million passengers are expected in the first year.

“Eurowings remains the fastest-growing airline in Europe. In 2013, we operated 32 aircraft; today we have 110,” Wagner said.

Eurowings’ network currently includes 160 destinations.

“One of the biggest challenges we have had is the integration of 30 wet-leased aircraft from airberlin within eight weeks,” he said.

Under a wet-lease agreement, airberlin is leasing 38 Airbus A319/A320 aircraft—which are stationed at German and Austrian airports—to Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Eurowings and Austrian Airlines.

Eurowings is taking 33 of the aircraft and Austrian is taking the remaining five. “We already have 30 airberlin aircraft in our fleet,” Wagner told ATW. “One more will arrive in August; two next year.” 

The integration of these aircraft has given the carrier a major push in terms of capacity. “In May, our capacity grew 30%. Over the entire year, capacity will grow 25%. This is massive compared to the average growth in the European aviation industry, which is around 6%,” he said.

Kurt Hofmann, hofmann.aviation@netway.at