• 

  Lufthansa

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  LH/DLH

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Frankfurt Airport, Munich Airport

  Year Founded:

  1953

  Alliance:

  Star Alliance

  Airline Group:

  Lufthansa Group

  CEO:

  Carsten Spohr

  Country:

  Germany

It is not a surprise that British Airways is the most dominant airline at London Heathrow Airport. What's more interesting is the other dominant carriers at the facility. On its own, Lufthansa is the fifth-biggest user of London's primary airport. Still, when you add in the other Lufthansa Group member airlines, the group has almost double the number of flights scheduled by Virgin Atlantic.

It is not unusual for a major carrier to be the dominant airline at its home base, especially in Europe. This is the case with British Airways at London Heathrow, Lufthansa in Frankfurt, Iberia in Madrid, Air France in Paris, and KLM at Schiphol. It does start getting interesting when such airlines register as some of the biggest users at their rivals' bases.

Lufthansa is #5 at London Heathrow

When you think of London Heathrow Airport, Lufthansa likely isn't one of the first airlines to come to mind. Despite this, according to May 2022 schedule data from Cirium, Lufthansa is the fifth biggest airline user of London's primary airport, with an average of 18 flights scheduled to depart the airline each day to its Frankfurt and Munich bases.

Lufthansa's route to Frankfurt Airport is actually the second busiest route from Heathrow behind Aer Lingus' Dublin service when flights are split between airlines. Frankfurt is the fourth busiest route behind New York's JFK, Dublin, and Amsterdam when all airlines on a route are aggregated.

Of the airlines that exceed Lufthansa's dominance, two are British, one is part of the same airline group as British Airways, and the other is part of the same airline alliance as British Airways according to Cirium's data,

The Lufthansa Group's Heathrow dominance

From the data, you can see a difference of 216 departures between Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic. This equates to around seven daily departures. When you include the entire Lufthansa Group, the increase in departures is far more than 216.

In May, the Lufthansa Group has 1,462 departures scheduled from London Heathrow across its five core airline brands. This equates to around 47 departures each day, though they aren't spread equally between the airline brands.

Short-haul carriers generally dominate Heathrow

American Airlines is the fourth biggest user of London Heathrow, though short-haul airlines are typically more prominent users of the facility than long-haul airlines. The reasons are relatively simple. Long-haul aircraft are typically higher capacity than short-haul aircraft due to their increased fuel capacity and more spacious cabins. As such, airlines typically operate fewer, higher-capacity flights. Some longer-haul airlines are also still operating fewer flights than they would've historically due to current global conditions.

In contrast, there is demand for more frequent services on shorter routes served by smaller narrowbodies. Emirates is the 16th biggest user of Heathrow with its six daily rotations from Dubai International Airport. Aside from American Airlines, as mentioned above, United Airlines is the only other long-haul international airline flying into London Heathrow within the top ten airline users, coming in as the sixth biggest airline behind Lufthansa. The sixth to tenth biggest airline users are as follows,

Did you realize the Lufthansa Group had such a big presence at London Heathrow Airport? Let us know what you think and why in the comments!

Source: Cirium