German carrier airberlin has announced that it will introduce a three times weekly link between Berlin and Los Angeles. The route will launch from Berlin Tegel on May 1, 2012 but will switch to Berlin Brandenburg Airport when it opens at the start of June 2012.
Further expanding its US network, the airline will also increase the frequency of its flights from the German capital to New York from four flights per week to a daily service from May 5, 2012.
The new route represents the first connection from the German capital to the US West Coast. In the past year an estimated 479,000 O&D passengers travelled to the US from Berlin with around 36,000 beginning or ending their journey in Los Angeles, the seventh largest market.
There is also strong demand to other locations in California including around 34,000 to San Francisco. airberlin already offers flights from Berlin to Miami and New York; Continental Airlines operates to Newark, while Delta Air Lines has a seasonal link to New York.
airberlin is also to increase flights into the Polish market, increasing capacity to Krakow and launching services to Gdansk. Around 1.8 million passengers travelled between the two countries in the past year, a market that has actually declined by around 11.6 per cent in the past 12 months. The German carrier currently has just a 2.2 per cent share of this market, dominated by national carriers Lufthansa and LOT Polish Airlines and budget operator Wizz Air.
The airline will be the sole operator between Berlin and Gdansk and will use a Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 on its 12 weekly flights. It had previously served the route on a seasonal basis in summer 2010. It is also the only carrier currently providing flights between Berlin and Krakow, handling around 23,000 O&D passengers in the past year; a figure that will grow significantly as it boost its frequency from four to twelve flights per week from
“With our new non-stop flights to America and Poland and the increase in frequencies we are ensuring sustainable strength in our position in Berlin,” said Hartmut Mehdorn, Chief Executive Officer, airberlin. “The respective expansion of our Berlin hub is a significant step with regard to the capital’s new airport and full membership in oneworld planned for Spring 2012.“
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