Condor has announced plans to base aircraft outside of Germany as it grapples with the country’s rising government costs on the aviation industry. In so doing, the carrier will boost traffic to its existing long-haul network through well-timed connections. This will pose a threat to Lufthansa as Condor begins venturing into transit territory, typically reserved for Lufthansa and its partner airlines in the German market.

A new strategy: from Germany through Italy

Condor’s move outside of Germany will mean expanded connectivity to key European cities. The carrier plans to introduce a daily flight between

(FRA) and each of the following destinations:

• Rome Fiumicino (FCO)
• Milan Malpensa (MXP)
• Prague (PRG)
• Vienna International (VIE)
• Zurich Kloten (ZRH)
• Berlin Brandenburg (BER)
• Hamburg Helmut Schmidt (HAM)
• Munich Franz Josef Strauss (MUC)

To facilitate this, an additional aircraft will be based at ZRH and one at VIE. The airline will also base planes for the first time at PRG, MXP, and FCO. Peter Gerber, CEO of Condor, had this to say:

“With the eight new city connections, each of which is included in the summer flight schedule once a day, Condor is expanding its offering to include exciting city destinations where you can have a fantastic time.

After all, Condor has long since ceased to be a classic vacation airline: we are consistently developing our flight schedule in line with the needs of our guests. Added to this are the exorbitantly rising location costs in Germany, which have prompted us to relocate a total of five aircraft to Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Milan and Rome in order to grow economically there.”

Feeding long-haul flights

Condor has been expanding its long-haul network quite a bit in recent years. The focus has largely been on North America, where it has added service to Phoenix, upped flights to Miami from seasonal to year-round and introduced flights to San José del Cabo to name a few.

This has complemented the gradual introduction of its new Airbus A330neo fleet, taking over from the Boeing 767. Boston saw its inaugural Condor A330 in May 2024. Per ch-aviation data, it has 17 A330-900s in service, with a further four on order. The 767 was phased out officially in March.

The new short-haul flights will provide key transit traffic to Condor’s long-haul operation as it moves from being an exclusively leisure-focused airline to also considering business travel. The short-haul flights are scheduled to arrive in Frankfurt between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning, in time for the subsequent long-haul bank. A few examples of the long-haul flights included in this wave are as follows, per information available on the Condor booking platform.

It is worth noting that several other long-haul flights depart at around 15:00, including San Antonio (SAT) at 14:05, Miami (MIA) and Vancouver (YVR) at 14:30, Minneapolis (MSP) at 15:00 and Punta Cana (PUJ) and Toronto (YYZ) at 15:40.

This is an analysis of part of Condor’s long-haul North America network for Summer 2025 and their departure times.

Charge uptick in Germany

Condor has previously said that it was unhappy with the near doubling of government fees for air traffic control, security and other related taxes over the last four years. CEO Peter Gerber has said that these costs have risen to approximately €7 billion ($7.5 billion) annually, putting German airlines at a disadvantage compared to international competitors.

Last month, the company revealed that it would be cutting 13% of its flights from Hamburg Airport, and annulling all previous growth plans that it had for the Northern city. In a statement, the company said that it would be completely removing flights to Malaga and Samos in Spain from Hamburg next summer. This followed news that Hamburg would be increasing charges by about 10%.