A German court case will have ripple effects on transatlantic airline fares.
A well-known German airline is expanding its route network from Frankfurt, and that will have implications for transatlantic travelers seeking low fares. From March, Condor will expand service from Frankfurt to Rome, Palermo (one-stop via Rome), Milan Malpensa, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich.
But why is this important? Lufthansa, Germany’s flag carrier, already serves these destinations from Frankfurt, its primary hub. Condor is a German leisure airline that was once a Lufthansa subsidiary, and they’re doing it largely as the result of a court decision that would have implications for their low-fare service across the Atlantic.
What Is Condor?
Condor has been around since the mid-1950s, around the same time Lufthansa restarted operations in then-West Germany following the end of World War II. Unlike Lufthansa, which focused on “flag carrier” markets with business or diplomatic traffic, Condor was a leisure airline, mostly selling seats to vacation destinations through travel agents as part of package tours.
The airline evolved through several iterations over the decades, with Lufthansa slowly getting rid of most of its shares in the 2000s. It’s still largely a vacation airline, serving destinations of interest to the German outbound leisure traveler, but it has also grown a following in the U.S.—including flights to many cities that don’t otherwise have nonstop flights to Europe, like San Antonio and Anchorage (German-speaking Europe is the largest international inbound market for Alaska in the summer).
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Travelers like Condor for low transatlantic fares and affordable premium economy and business class cabins which are priced for leisure travelers.
What’s the Issue?
Until very recently, German anti-trust regulators required Lufthansa to provide space on their short haul Europe flights at very favorable terms. The idea was that without the ability to feed transatlantic passengers to Lufthansa, Condor wouldn’t be able to reliably fill their aircraft with only passengers bound for Frankfurt.
In late 2024, German courts ruled that Lufthansa no longer had to provide the space to Condor, essentially kneecapping Condor’s ability to sell tickets between the United States and points beyond Frankfurt (which by itself trails other German cities like Berlin and Munich in popularity among inbound leisure travelers). Almost immediately following the announcement, Condor announced it would suspend service from Frankfurt to Baltimore, Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Antonio, and Phoenix, leaving each of those airports without nonstop service to Germany, and leaving San Antonio without nonstop service to Europe.
In these situations, less choice of airlines typically leads to higher fares.
Condor flies year-round from New York, Seattle, and Miami to Frankfurt. Seasonal service is available from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Boston, Anchorage, and Portland, Oregon. Passengers can also connect to Frankfurt from those cities visa Condor’s partnership with Alaska Airlines, but on the other side of the Atlantic, opportunities to feed onto Lufthansa flights are now much more limited, and more expensive. That makes it harder for Condor to fill their flights and continue offering a low-fare option to Europe.
Court Battles Continue
Courts in Germany and regulators in the European Union still aren’t settled on the issue. The European Commission told Lufthansa earlier this month it needed to reinstate Condor’s access to Lufthansa’s feeder flights on the Frankfurt-New York route, because Condor would likely have to end service on that route. The European Commission is investigating a joint venture in that particular route between Lufthansa, United, and Air Canada which the E.U. believes may restrict competition on the route.
The Lufthansa joint venture is several years old and had previously received approvals from regulators in both the U.S. and E.U., but the European Commission provides ongoing oversight to ensure that the agreement—which it may not have considered anticompetitive when it was originally approved—continues to allow for competition from other airlines as the marketplace changes.
Ultimately, travelers on both continents will see the effects of any outcome on their wallets when they purchase tickets to Europe.