Lufthansa outsources Saudi, Ethiopia route in Summer 2018

Lufthansa keen to deepen ties with Indian carriers

Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) is seeking to "strengthen" its ties with Indian airlines like Vistara (UK, Delhi Int'l) and Air India (AI, Mumbai Int'l) next year as a result of the demise of Jet Airways (JAI, Mumbai Int'l) in April.

Currently, Lufthansa Group has an interline agreement with Vistara, and may look to pursue moving this up to a full codeshare in the future.

"We are trying to strengthen it," said George Ettiyil, Senior Director, South Asia, Lufthansa Group to the Press Trust of India. "Let us see what the future holds in store. We have the desire to actually strengthen partnerships with other Indian airlines also. So, Vistara is an obvious choice."

These moves by Lufthansa with industry newcomer Vistara are being taken despite a long-held codeshare agreement with the more established Air India.

Definitely on the agenda for 2020 is penetrating deeper into India. The Lufthansa Group "will be trying to strengthen our Indian partnerships" so that Indian carriers "can bring passengers from second-...

Lufthansa suspends Pune flights as PrivatAir goes under

PrivatAir's Swiss, German units file for insolvency

PrivatAir (Switzerland) (PV, Geneva) has announced that both it and its sister carrier PrivatAir (Germany) (PTG, Düsseldorf) have now started insolvency proceedings in each of Switzerland and Germany.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, December 5, the Swiss carrier said only that it had experienced a "number of events" over the past few weeks that have had a significant impact on the companies’ future business forecast and viability.

PrivatAir was created in 1977 in Switzerland as Petrolair (Geneva) and had employed a total staff complement of 226 spread across Switzerland, Germany and Portugal.

PrivatAir (Germany) last operated three A319-100s for Saudia Private Aviation (SVA, Jeddah) all of which were in the process of being transferred to the Swiss AOC at the time of filing for insolvency. It also had two B737-700(BBJs) that were in storage at the time the German AOC was lost.

German CAA withholds PrivatAir's German AOC