Eurowings has made this announcement:

Eurowings has made this announcement:

Eurowings is again flying out of Stuttgart again since April 23:

After successfully completing renovation work on the runway at Stuttgart Airport, Eurowings flight EW2002, heading for Berlin-Tegel, took off punctually at 7.05 a.m. on Thursday morning as the first flight from Stuttgart.

Due to the partial renewal of the runway, which was carried out in the period from April 6 until April 22, 2020, no passenger operation was possible in Stuttgart. Eurowings – like the other airlines in Stuttgart – had to temporarily pause its basic flight program from Baden-Württemberg.

From Stuttgart, Eurowings, the market leader in Stuttgart, flies its passengers to Hamburg and Berlin up to six times a week each, thus ensuring basic service for the important economic region of Baden-Württemberg.

In addition to domestic flights from Stuttgart to Hamburg and Berlin, Eurowings also offers selected flights from its largest locations Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn in response to the current corona crisis.  Due to the strong spread of the corona virus in recent weeks and the resulting decline in bookings as well as numerous entry restrictions, Eurowings had to drastically adjust its flight schedule. The flight programme on offer was temporarily reduced to about ten percent of the previous capacity.

The Eurowings harvest worker flights will continue to be a focal point of the reduced flight schedule. Since the start of this “airlift for farmers” at the beginning of April, Eurowings has already flown more than 5,000 harvest workers from Romania to Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Leipzig, and Nuremberg. Further special flights are planned in the coming days and weeks, more than 100 in total, to provide the best possible help to farmers in a very difficult situation and to secure the supply of fruit and vegetables in Germany.

Photo: Eurowings.

Eurowings issued this report:

Because of the current corona crisis, many holidaymakers are stranded abroad. Since March 14, 2020, Lufthansa Group airlines have flown more than 58,000 holiday makers back to their home countries of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium on some 300 special flights from around 65 airports on all five continents. Around 45 further flights are already in preparation. With over 100 flights, Eurowings alone has brought home around 20,000 passengers from holiday regions such as Palma de Mallorca, Morocco and Tenerife. Further Eurowings repatriation flights are already being planned for the coming days.

These rescue flights can be booked independently by individual travelers via the Eurowings website. Another part of the flights is carried out as charter flights. In this case, tourism companies or the German Foreign Office, when holidaymakers officially register there, commission the flights. Rescue flights can be well represented by Eurowings. In times of crisis, however, when a large number of such flights have to be organized, they represent a significantly higher effort that can only be mastered by cross-functional teams.

Depending on where, when and how many passengers need to be picked up, coordination within Eurowings is just as important as close cooperation with various ministries and governments. Special conditions or special permissions are often required for the execution of flights:

“For example, it may be that a flight connection can only be scheduled to take passengers from abroad back to Germany. The outbound flight from Germany must remain empty in several cases. If so, it is a ferry flight,” explains René Rybka, Head of Network at Eurowings. “Traffic rights sometimes even have to be negotiated at the highest levels of government.”

In various departments of Eurowings, colleagues work closely together under unfamiliar conditions to be able to carry out these repatriation flights. At Eurowings, colleagues from Network Planning, Sales, Revenue Management, Operations Control Center, Crew Control, Passenger Control Center, Flight Operations (cockpit and cabin), Ground Operations and Operations Support work together, sometimes around the clock, to plan, control and execute the rescue flights accordingly – and to be able to implement even challenging flights promptly thanks to the close cooperation.

Thomas Kleckler, who in his role as Deputy Head of the Operation Control Center at Eurowings is responsible for planning and controlling the rescue flights, praises the close, cross-departmental cooperation:

“I would like to express my sincere thanks to you all!  Thank you very much for proving once again that Eurowings can rely on your professionalism, flexibility and resilience in crises! Nobody knows how long this crisis will last and how long we will have to reduce our flight offerings in this way. I am sure: We are well prepared!”

As soon as such a rescue flight is requested by a tour operator, a cruise line or the Foreign Office, it must first be examined whether the flight can take place in principle. This decision depends largely on the conditions at the requested destinations, such as traffic rights and slots, entry and exit conditions, fuel availability or catering for passengers and crew. Depending on the number of passengers who want to fly back to Germany, the number of flight attendants whose deployment is handled by crew planning varies. The flight duty times of the crews must also be taken into account in the planning, as well as the legally prescribed rest periods at the destination. Flights are only carried out after consultation with the Security department of Eurowings.

Olessia Engelhardt, Senior Manager Network Development & Airport Relations at Eurowings, takes a look behind the scenes of her area of responsibility with regard to the rescue flights:

“Yesterday at 2.10 pm we received a call from the German Foreign Office asking if we could organize a flight from Agadir to Germany. Only two minutes later this request was passed on to the IOCC, which returned to the Foreign Office at 2.24 pm with a positive response including flight data – less than 15 minutes after the request was received! Shortly before 3 pm we received the confirmation of the flight order via the German Foreign Office and directly arranged for the crew and station colleagues in Agadir to be activated. The flight was immediately scheduled in the system and already at 15.32 pm the traffic rights were confirmed. Through this unprecedented collaboration, a flight was put in place in less than an hour and a half and we were able to allow 180 passengers to get home in time before Morocco closes its borders. The plane set off from Cologne/Bonn at 6.00 pm for Agadir, picked up the returnees on the spot, and landed safely again in Cologne/Bonn at 03.15 am.”

In times of the coronavirus crisis, it goes without saying that the protection of the crew against infection, who demonstrate their extraordinary commitment to our guests day after day in these difficult times, is a priority and Eurowings implements a wide range of measures to protect the safety of crews and passengers. For example, the middle seat on flights from Germany is left free where possible to increase the physical distance on board. In addition, all Eurowings flights at domestic airports will only be positioned at building positions wherever this is possible due to the existing airport infrastructure and official regulations. This is intended to avoid bus trips by passengers. Where this is not possible at short notice, twice as many buses as usual have already been used for a few days. Eurowings had already taken numerous measures to increase the distance between passengers along the entire travel chain, for example at check-in or when boarding and disembarking. The service on board has also been adapted to take account of the “physical distance”. All aircraft are equipped with disinfectants and gloves for the crews.

Eurowings aircraft photo gallery:

Eurowings has made this announcement:

Due to the ever-increasing spread of the coronavirus and the resulting drop in bookings as well as numerous entry restrictions, Eurowings recently had to drastically adjust its flight schedule. The flight program on offer has been temporarily reduced to around ten percent of the previous capacity. The flight cancellations will be gradually implemented in the booking systems and passengers will be informed about changes and rebooking possibilities.

A focus of the reduced flight schedule will continue to be the repatriation flights from the most important holiday regions, enabling Eurowings European citizens to return safely to their home countries. In recent weeks Eurowings has already flown home about 20,000 passengers on more than 100 flights.

In detail the reduced program looks like this:

Eurowings flights from Düsseldorf

From Düsseldorf, Eurowings operates up to nine flights a week to Hamburg and Berlin, up to six flights a week to Vienna, Zurich and London and up to two flights a week to Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, and Thessaloniki.

Eurowings flights from Hamburg

From Hamburg, Eurowings operates up to nine flights a week to Stuttgart and Düsseldorf and up to six flights a week to Cologne/Bonn.

Eurowings flights from Cologne/Bonn

From Cologne/Bonn, Eurowings offers up to six weekly flights each to Hamburg and Munich as well as up to nine weekly connections to Berlin.

Eurowings flights from Stuttgart

From Stuttgart, Eurowings currently flies its passengers up to nine times a week to Hamburg and Berlin and up to twice a week to Zagreb.

During the Easter holidays there may be deviations from the basic flight program.

In other news, Eurowings and Lufthansa are introducing further measures to ensure physical distance between passengers during their journey.

From March 27, 2020, neighboring seats on board in Economy Class and Premium Economy will be blocked and remain free on all flights from Germany. This also applies to flights within Germany.

This regulation does not apply on flights to Germany, because the airlines top priority remains returning as many people as possible to their home country.

In addition, from now on all Eurowings and Lufthansa flights at domestic airports will only be handled at building positions wherever possible given the existing airport infrastructure and official regulations. This measure intends to help pas-sengers avoid having to take bus trips. Where this is not possible at short notice, twice as many buses will be operating, which has also been the case for the last few days.

Both measures will apply until April 19, 2020.

Eurowings and Lufthansa have already taken numerous measures to increase the distance between passengers along the entire travel chain, for example at check-in counters or when boarding and disembarking from the aircraft. The service on board has also been adapted regarding the current physical distancing measures.

Germanwings and Eurowings Europe take a temporary break

Due to all the entry bans and curfews, the two airlines Germanwings and Eurowings Europe, which fly on behalf of Eurowings, will temporarily leave their aircraft on the ground and take a break. The flight schedule of Eurowings Germany will also be significantly reduced – with exception of the return flights and the aforementioned fuselage program at major German stations. These measures are designed to reduce the financial consequences of the slump in demand. They complement the already planned savings in personnel, material costs and project budgets as well as other liquidity measures. Eurowings is currently engaged in constructive discussions with its operating partners and trade unions on short-time working.

Eurowings aircraft photo gallery: