Lufthansa launches five new long-haul routes from Frankfurt and Munich
Columbus lands its first transatlantic flight, backed by roughly $47 million in incentives.
On October 25, Lufthansa restored its Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur service for the first time in a decade, as Northern Hemisphere carriers shifted to winter schedules on IATA slot seasons. The Star Alliance member has since confirmed four further long-haul launches, departing from both Frankfurt and Munich.
The German flag carrier announced on October 19 that it would fly from Frankfurt to John Glenn Columbus International Airport from May 5, 2027, three times weekly. The 287-seat Boeing 787-9 with Allegris cabin will serve the city, which has never before had scheduled long-haul passenger service.
The route carries roughly $47 million in incentives, which the airline acknowledged played a major role in the decision. It also gives Columbus Airport its sole widebody operation. Because Cincinnati's airport is across the border in Kentucky, Ohio now gains a second airport with long-haul flights, joining Cleveland.
That Cleveland service is an Aer Lingus route to Dublin. Demand from Columbus justified the bet: booking data shows 930 round-trip passengers a day to Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa and South Asia in the twelve months to August 2026, with two-thirds of them starting in just 30 cities.
The ten strongest markets were London, Rome, Paris, Nairobi, Dublin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Athens, Lisbon and Venice. Lufthansa will target that traffic and offer one-stop connections to many smaller points for the first time. We covered the launch when it was announced as Columbus' first nonstop to Europe.
From Munich, Lufthansa begins flying to Phoenix Sky Harbor on August 3, 2027, three times weekly. The 293-seat Airbus A350-900 will depart Arizona at 5:50 PM in peak summer heat, though the type carries no payload restriction. The sector covers 5,060 nautical miles, or 9,371 kilometres, each way.
It becomes the carrier's third-longest A350-900 route from Munich to the United States, behind San Diego and San Francisco, and the seventh-longest A350-900 operation between Europe and the US overall. The launch marks the first-ever service from Munich to Arizona when it takes off.
Germany has served Phoenix before. Lufthansa itself flew there from Frankfurt between 2001 and 2004, while defunct LTU operated from Düsseldorf between 1996 and 1998 and Condor last ran Frankfurt services in 2024. We detailed the Munich to Phoenix launch when it was first revealed.
From 2005 to 2017, British Airways stood as the only European carrier at Phoenix. With Lufthansa's return, three European airlines will serve the airport in 2027 for the first time since 2024, alongside BA and Air France, whose debut came in 2024. American Airlines keeps its London Heathrow link from the old US Airways hub.
Lufthansa also brings back Tokyo Narita on March 28, 2027, flying daily with the 787-9. It will be the first time the carrier has deployed a Boeing twinjet to Japan. Narita last saw Lufthansa passenger equipment in 2017, when the airline consolidated its operations at Tokyo Haneda.
A shortage of take-off and landing slots at Haneda, which makes adding frequencies difficult, is the reason the Narita connection returns.
The fifth route is Nagoya. On March 29, 2027, Lufthansa launches three weekly Frankfurt flights to Chubu Centrair International Airport using the 787-9. The carrier last served Nagoya in 2020, dropping it as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For many years Lufthansa had flown only the A340-300 and A340-600 to Nagoya, making the 787-9 a change in the route's equipment history. At Chubu Centrair, Lufthansa will be one of just two European carriers, sharing the airport with Finnair.
Frankfurt to Columbus runs Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, leaving at 11:15 AM and arriving at 2:00 PM local time, with the return departing at 4:20 PM and reaching Frankfurt at 6:15 AM the following day; Munich to Phoenix runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, departing at 1:20 PM and arriving at 4:00 PM.
Lufthansa has also conceded its Frankfurt and Munich routes to Seattle to its leisure-oriented Discover Airlines unit, trimming capacity to the Pacific Northwest as the five new long-haul services come online.
What the winter schedule brings
The Kuala Lumpur restoration came on the day airlines across the Northern Hemisphere switched to winter schedules, one of hundreds of new and returning routes taking off globally. Lufthansa, usually conservative in network planning, has paired that with an unusual burst of expansion into secondary and mid-sized markets across two continents.
The Columbus incentives, spread across revenue guarantees and other risk-sharing agreements, are common tools for attracting and securing new airlines, though some carriers pull out once support ends. Lufthansa's Ohio commitment runs for three weekly flights, which gives the airport a schedule around which it can now plan.
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