Lufthansa introduces First Class on its Riyadh Munich service and connects Jeddah to Munich

Lufthansa German Airlines is introducing its acclaimed First Class on its services from Saudi Arabia to Munich, its gateway in southern German. At the same time Lufthansa will connect Jeddah to Munich for the first time. The flights will be operated via the Saudi capital three times weekly. The deployment of the 221-seat Airbus A340-300 practically doubles the load capacity on the route. Lufthansa’s A340-300 features a classic three-class cabin configuration with eight seats in First Class, 48 seats in Business Class and 165 seats in Economy Class. The wide-body aircraft replaces the smaller 92-seat Boeing 737-800 which served the Riyadh-Munich route since April 26 2010. 

Beginning winter timetable at the end of October 2011, Lufthansa will also link Jeddah to its Munich gateway in a move to offer further passenger services from the Saudi Arabian port city. The addition of Jeddah to the Munich route comes a year after the launch of the direct services between Riyadh and Munich. Lufthansa also offers daily nonstop flights on the Jeddah-Frankfurt and on the Riyadh-Frankfurt routes. Dammam is served five times weekly. That brings the number of weekly departures to 25 from Saudi Arabia to Germany.

With the introduction of our wide-body Airbus featuring a three-class cabin and the new service to Jeddah, Lufthansa underlines again its strong commitment to the Saudi market, offering unparalleled choice and travel flexibility. Our resolve is to provide high quality products and to make them available to more customers in more places in the Kingdom,” said Stefan Loecherbach, Director of Lufthansa for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen. 

This development is well in line with the general growth of Lufthansa in the Gulf region.  As seen over the last couple of years, Lufthansa has steadily increased its presence and today serves as many as 13 destinations in 10 countries across the Middle East. In 2009 Lufthansa upgraded its Saudi operations to 17 weekly flights – seven from Riyadh, another seven from Jeddah and three from Dammam.  In April 2010, Lufthansa launched a new service between Riyadh and Germany’s southern gateway, Munich.  A year later, Lufthansa operates three weekly flights between Jeddah-Riyadh-Munich. 

“Saudi Arabia is an important market for Lufthansa especially with the growing economic ties between the Kingdom and Germany.  It is vital for Lufthansa to continue and sustain its investments in line with market demand,” said Mr. Joachim Steinbach, Vice President Sales & Services for Southeast Europe, Africa, Middle East and Pakistan. 

Flying with Lufthansa has its share of benefits and flexibility.  In Frankfurt and Munich travelers from Saudi Arabia find lean onward connections to 211 destinations in 84 countries this summer.  On top of that, passengers from Saudi Arabia can also take advantage of Lufthansa’s partner airlines such as British Midland International (BMI).  Flexibility is at its most when passengers with multiple destinations can choose to fly with Lufthansa to Frankfurt or Munich, then travel onward to London and return to Riyadh via BMI’s direct service, without having to shuttle back to Frankfurt from London. 

On May 2, 2011, and for the second straight year, Lufthansa was named “best European airline serving the Middle East” in the Business Traveller Middle East Awards. Recently, readers of the Business Traveller Deutschland magazine ranked Lufthansa in top place in two categories in 2010. In a magazine poll of around 2,000 readers, Lufthansa clinched the best marks for superb service from a majority of the respondents, placing the airline twice at the top of the scorecard. Besides winning in the “Best Business Class on German and European Routes“, the biggest German carrier left the competition trailing in the voting for the “Best Airline Website for Business Travellers” category.