germanwings (4U, Cologne/Bonn) will dispose of between eight and ten of its twenty three-strong fleet of CRJ900s ahead of the carrier's transition into an all-Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) fleet next year.
Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) CEO Karl Garnadt told FlightGlobal in New York late last month that marketing of the aircraft will begin either later this year or in early 2015 with all CRJ jets to be gone by 2016. The carrier recently announced plans to offload its fleet of Lufthansa CityLine (CL, Munich) CRJ700s to Miami-based aircraft parts and lease specialist, Regional One, over the ensuing 12 to 15 months.
The CRJ-900s, which are currently operated for germanwings by sister company, Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf), are to be replaced with a fleet of twenty-three A320-200s. The Eurowings A320-200s will be operated on behalf of germanwings but are also expected to be used to open new bases outside Germany under the Eurowings brand with Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, CH expected to be the first non-German base and Belgium and Austria mentioned as other possible growth markets.
germanwings will, in the meantime, complete its take over of Lufthansa's point-to-point European operations (excluding Frankfurt International and Munich services) in January next year with the absorption of Lufthansa's Düsseldorf to Zurich route.
