New Route of the Day (1 October 2021): Lufthansa between Munich and Dubai

EXPO 2020 in Dubai has clearly been a major contributor to new routes in recent weeks and here’s another one. On 1 October, Lufthansa began 3-weekly service on the 4,570-kilometre route between Munich and Dubai. The service is currently set to operate until the end of April. Lufthansa already serves Dubai from Frankfurt with daily flights. Competition on the new Munich service comes from Emirates who operate 9-weekly at present increasing to 2-daily in December.

The inaugural Lufthansa service from Munich (flight number LH 638 operated by an Airbus A350-900, registration D-AIXP) departed Munich at 22:45 and touched down in Dubai five hours and 28 minutes later at 06:13 local time the following day. The return flight (LH 639) departed the UAE at 09:23 and landed back in Bavaria five hours and 57 minutes later at 13:20 local time, according to flightradar24.com. Flights depart Munich on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Germany-UAE air service agreement limits destinations

Apart from Frankfurt and Munich, Emirates also serves Düsseldorf and Hamburg with non-stop flights from Dubai. The air service agreement between Germany and the UAE limits the number of destinations that UAE carriers can serve in Germany to four. As a result, there are currently no non-stop scheduled services between the German capital, Berlin, and Dubai. The two cities were connected by 3-weekly airberlin flights between November 2010 and February 2012 (mostly using A330-200s inherited from LTU) and then briefly by Germania between December 2012 and February 2013, when the German leisure airline operated weekly flights using an A319.

However, FTI Touristik in co-operation with SmartLynx of Latvia is offering up to 3-weekly charter flights from Berlin to Dubai this winter. Initially, flights will be on Mondays and Thursdays using an A321, with a Saturday service set to be added from mid-December. Following the recent elections in Germany which have seen a shift in political power, it is possible that the situation regarding flights to Germany may change, though probably not in the short-term. It does seem quite bizarre that while Salzburg in Austria now has scheduled service to Dubai thanks to flydubai, Berlin, the capital of Germany, Europe’s biggest economy does not have service with Emirates, flydubai, Etihad Airways or even Air Arabia.

Read more about the market between Europe and Dubai here.