Lufthansa — German flag carrier and major European airline

Today's Deutsche Lufthansa AG was initially founded in 1953 as Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf (LUFTAG) and renamed Deutsche Lufthansa AG in 1954 following the acquisition of the rights to the traditional Lufthansa company name. The company began scheduled flight operations on 1 April 1955. By 1963, Deutsche Lufthansa AG was almost 100 per cent state-owned. It was still the official flag carrier of the Federal Republic of Germany until 1994. Since 1997 Deutsche Lufthansa AG has been fully privatised. Since September 1997 Lufthansa has issued registered shares with restricted transferability in order to be able at any time to provide the proof required by air transport agreements and EU directives that the majority of Lufthansa shares are in German hands.

Since the mid-1990s Deutsche Lufthansa AG has developed into today's aviation group with various business segments managed as independent subsidiaries, including airfreight in Lufthansa Cargo AG, aircraft maintenance in Lufthansa Technik AG and catering in LSG Service Holding AG. Since the mid-2000s Deutsche Lufthansa AG has also taken over several European airlines, including Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings, parts of Air Berlin and for a time British Midland Airways.

Today's company is not a legal successor to a "first" company, Deutsche Luft Hansa AG, which was founded in Berlin as early as 1926, was influenced by National Socialism from 1933 onwards, and ceased its flight operations at the end of the Second World War in 1945 (final liquidation in 1951 by the Allies).

While the Group (Lufthansa Group) including Lufthansa Passenger Airlines is directly managed by Deutsche Lufthansa AG under company law, its formally independent subsidiaries are managed indirectly via the supervisory and executive bodies there.

The Group Executive Board manages the entire Group with its six areas of responsibility: Chairman of the Executive Board, Commercial Network Airlines, Digital & Finance, Airline Resources & Operations Standards, Customer & Corporate Responsibility, and Human Resources, Legal and M&A. Carsten Spohr has been Chairman of the Executive Board since 1 May 2014, succeeding Christoph Franz. Karl-Ludwig Kley has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board since September 2017. The company's registered office and head office are in Cologne, but business is managed at the Lufthansa Aviation Center at Frankfurt Airport, which opened in 2005. All departments close to the operational business are housed there. Around 300 employees from insurance, administration and IT are based at the head office in Cologne. The other departments were already relocated from Cologne to Frankfurt in the 1980s, partly against the resistance of the employees.

In 2018, the Group employed an average of 134,330 people. At the end of 2007, there were 105,261 employees with 155 nationalities (in Germany 64,434 employees with 126 nationalities). The Lufthansa Group is one of the companies in the civil aviation industry with significant staff growth. Unlike many other (former) flag carriers in Europe, the company is majority privately owned. With more than 400 group and associated companies worldwide, it is one of the largest groups in the civil aviation industry.

The activities of Deutsche Lufthansa AG are divided into three business segments:

• Network Airlines, with Lufthansa Passenger Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines;
• Eurowings (point-to-point airlines);
• Aviation Services (Cargo, MRO, Catering, IT Services), with Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik, LSG Sky Chefs, Lufthansa Systems and others.

In addition to the subsidiaries operating scheduled flights under various brand names, such as Eurowings, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines, and the airlines under the umbrella brand Lufthansa Regional, the Group also holds equity investments in several foreign airlines. The Group also operates service and finance companies. The airline Condor, which once belonged to Lufthansa, was spun off from the Group in 1997 and sold in 2006, but retained its membership in Lufthansa's frequent flyer programme Miles & More.

In 2007 a reform programme was announced, under which in particular the previously relatively independent management areas of purchasing, controlling and real estate management of the larger subsidiaries (such as Lufthansa Technik and Lufthansa Cargo) were centralised.

In international air traffic, the Group is among the top 10 largest airlines among the IATA airlines, depending on the calculation method. However, it is outperformed in almost all areas by major US carriers.