The airline was founded as Ostfriesische Lufttaxi in 1958 and became Ostfriesische Lufttransport in 1970 - which existed until 2013 as a separate airline - in Emden. It was reorganised and renamed as DLT Luftverkehrsgesellschaft mbH on 1 October 1974 and began cooperation with Lufthansa in 1978 with short-range international routes. By 1989 all operations were on behalf of Lufthansa. In March 1992 DLT became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and was renamed Lufthansa CityLine. Lufthansa CityLine employs 2,332 people, of whom 664 are cockpit crew, 849 cabin crew and 819 work in the technical and administrative areas as of 31 December 2011. Lufthansa placed an order on 17 April 2007 for 30 Embraer E-190/195 and 15 Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft to directly replace LH CityLine's fleet of BAe 146 and Avro RJ aircraft. The last Avro RJ 85 took off from Cologne Bonn Airport on August 27, 2012 as LH1985.
Development since 2014
The airline was previously headquartered at Cologne Bonn Airport. In May 2013 it was announced that the management and administration offices of CityLine would be relocated from Cologne to Munich. The move was completed as of September 2014. Its corporate headquarters are now at the Flight Operations Center at Munich Airport. In late 2014, parent company Lufthansa announced it would begin transferring eight of its Airbus A340-300 aircraft to CityLine. After reconfiguration to a high-density configuration, these aircraft would be owned by CityLine and operated by CityLine pilots, but wet-leased back to Lufthansa to be used on leisure routes and serviced by Lufthansa cabin crews starting in 2015. The first destinations to be served by the new CityLiCRJ700s which left CityLine's fleet by March 2015. In October 2017, a new labour agreement between Lufthansa and its pilot unions was reached. As part of this agreement, the wetlease operations of Lufthansa CityLine on behalf of Lufthansa consisting of eight Airbus A340s were gradually terminated. As part of Lufthansa's new corporate design introduced in early 2018, Lufthansa Regional aircraft operated by Lufthansa CityLine are also receiving the new livery, with the Lufthansa Regional titles being removed from the fuselage and replaced by Lufthansa.
Destinations
Fleet
Current fleet
, the Lufthansa CityLine fleet consists of the following aircraft:
Historical fleet
Over the years, Lufthansa CityLine has operated the following aircraft types:
On 6 January 1993, Lufthansa Flight 5634 from Bremen to Paris, which was carried out under the Lufthansa CityLine brand using a Contact AirDash 8-300, hit the ground 1800 metres short of the runway of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, resulting in the death of four out of the 23 passengers on board. The four crew members survived. The accident occurred after the pilot had to abort the final approach to the airport because the runway had been closed due to the aircraft ahead, a Korean AirBoeing 747, suffering a blown tire upon landing.
On 28 December 1999, a passenger on board Lufthansa Flight 5293 from Prague to Düsseldorf, which was operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ100 aircraft, claimed to have a bomb on board and demanded the flight be diverted to the United Kingdom. The pilots convinced him to have a fuel stop at Düsseldorf Airport, where all passengers left the plane, and the perpetrator was arrested.
On 5 July 2014, Lufthansa Flight 1360 from Frankfurt to Katowice, operated by Lufthansa CityLine using a Bombardier CRJ700 aircraft, landed on an unopened and under construction runway at Katowice International Airport. The pilots performed a normal approach from the East in good conditions and visibility before landing on the closed runway. No one was hurt, and the aircraft later made a technical flight to land on the correct runway. The Polish State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation made recommendations to add additional markings to the runway, and to modify the ATIS to include warnings about the closed runway. The CAT I ILS was disabled due to the construction, and the aircraft featured an older EGPWS that lacked a "Smart Landing" mode and high resolution map of the area which prevented it from informing the crew of the situation. During the approach, PAPI and threshold lights were set to maximum brightness. The incident is still being investigated by Polish authorities.
