How the world became smaller: the evolution of the route network

[MA] In fact, in the ’50s and ’60s, transferring flights did not play a significant role. The airports were not designed to generate transfers. Then at the beginning of the ’70s, this trend slowly developed where hubs were established – what is classically called a ‘hub’ today.

[MP] We have a 360° hub in Frankfurt and actually connect the entire world with each other.

[VO] Above and Beyond—the podcast by Lufthansa Airlines. For insights into aviation.

[AH] From Hamburg to Buenos Aires, via Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Paris, Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Montevideo. If you spontaneously counted, yes, that is seven stopovers until the final destination, Buenos Aires. That’s how one flew to South America with the German Lufthansa in the early 1960s. Today, of course, everything is different. There are feeder flights to the central hubs in Frankfurt am Main and Munich, and planes that shuttle back and forth between their destinations, instead of rotating and travelling around the world like they used to. So, you can already tell, a lot has changed in a hundred years of Lufthansa, especially with the route network. And today we’ll be looking at this with two experts from today’s Route Network Planning. Welcome to ‘Above & Beyond’, Martina Pichura and Magnus Abstoß!

[MP] Hi!

[MA] Thank you very much.

[AH] So, you both work – let’s clarify this first – in the so-called Network Planning at Lufthansa?

[MP] Yes.

[AH] In the so-called ‘Cont’ and ‘Intercont’? What does that mean now? So maybe first the clarification of terms for everyone out there. What are Cont and Intercont?

[MP] Cont stands for continental traffic, Intercont for intercontinental traffic, meaning between continents.

[AH] But both are connected. So, you can’t really separate them, can you?

[MP] From our perspective, it can be separated, because in continental traffic we would use different aircraft types than in intercontinental traffic. It would go that far, right?

[MA] There are overlaps. When it comes to North Africa, the Levant, or the Caucasus, we actually fly with so-called continental aircraft. But this traffic area traditionally belongs to Lufthansa’s Intercontinental.

[AH] So, who does what among you? Martina, let’s start with you.

[MP] I am working in the intercontinental area and am responsible for the market and network planning for the entire Lufthansa Group in the Americas region, specifically for the US East Coast. And additionally, I am also, here in Frankfurt, responsible for the operational hub coordination in the Intercontinental area and work very closely with Magnus and his team.

[MA] So, and for me, it’s that I’m no longer Cont or Intercont, but I’m responsible for flight planning, or ‘scheduling’ in English. The hub of Frankfurt for Lufthansa, but also for the subsidiaries that fly here in Frankfurt, like an Air Dolomiti or a Cityline or also in the future a Lufthansa City that will also fly here in Frankfurt.

[AH] Now a very personal question: Would either of you still change planes seven times today to fly somewhere?

[MP] Honestly? No.

[MA] Well, just for fun – you don’t change, but I think it would be a cool thing to experience how people travelled back in the 1960s. It was quite different from today. Probably less stressful because there weren’t as many people. And I would find it interesting to experience that. Why not?

[AH] I also heard the food was supposed to be quite good. Fortunately, things are different today. As I already mentioned, today there are the hubs – Frankfurt and Munich – but they have developed historically. It was quite different at the beginnings of the first German Lufthansa before the Second World War, and also with the post-war Lufthansa. Let’s listen to how it sounds in an image film from 1958.

[Pilot Voice] Hamburg Tower, 4-2-0 ready for Take-off.

[Male Voice] The world airports, starting points of journeys that in hours lead over seas and mountains, deserts and jungles. To Baghdad or Buenos Aires, Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen or Rome, Chicago, Montreal or New York. The home base of the Lufthansa fleet is Hamburg. From here, all routes start and here they all end.

[Female Voice] The world has become smaller. The airplane has opened it up to us.

[Tower Voice] Lufthansa 4-2-0. You are clear to go. The service wind is calm.

[Pilot Voice] Clear for Take-off.

[AH] That’s wonderful music by Martin Böttcher from the Lufthansa image film Welcome Aboard from 1958. “The world has become smaller” – that was just now this sentence. Was that also the attitude of post-war Germans in the beginning of the economic miracle era?

[MA] That’s a good question. I couldn’t deny or confirm it because unfortunately, I’m not from that time. But if you look at the development of the route network, it must have been somehow in that direction, because Lufthansa oriented itself towards where Germans wanted to travel, where they wanted to fly to. And I think the urge to travel far was already there. It still is today.

[AH] Can it be said what the most exotic travel destinations for Germans were back then?

[MA] Back then, there were routes that you can’t operate like that today, like flying all the way to Australia. They sometimes flew there or to funny destinations across Asia, to make stopovers with the planes available at the time. And back then, you could also take passengers between the airports. So, from Calcutta to Karachi, we were allowed to transport passengers as Lufthansa, or also between Saigon and Tokyo. But all destinations that we no longer fly to today as Lufthansa, we simply no longer fly to Saigon and Karachi. There are various reasons for this. Not necessarily that Germans no longer want to fly there, but perhaps also political, economic reasons.

[AH] So, but the starting airport, in the report it was said, the ‘home base’ of Lufthansa in the definition was Hamburg, at the very beginning even Cologne-Bonn. Why did that change? How did the current structures come about?

[MA] So actually, Lufthansa had its headquarters in Cologne after the Second World War, but the technical base was in Hamburg, and the largest airport was always Frankfurt. And later, when the switch from propeller aircraft to jet aircraft happened, the jet aircraft were then based only in Frankfurt and no longer in Hamburg. And then the start, in the early 1960s, was no longer in Hamburg, but mostly in Frankfurt.

[AH] So, the reason was actually the jet age? This “higher, faster, further”? What effect did that have on the route network?

[MA] So actually, the route network changed in such a way that, all of a sudden, with aeroplanes that had a different range, you could go much further than before. That means a Super Constellation, which was nicely equipped inside, had to land in Rome or then in Cairo just to get to India. And with the first jet, the 707, Lufthansa could already go much, much further than it could with a propeller plane. So, you could skip Rome, you could also skip Cairo, and then enable completely different connections, and you were much faster at the destination.

[AH] And from when did transferring start to play a bigger role?

[MA] In fact, in the ’50s and ’60s, transferring flights did not play a significant role. The airports were not designed to generate transfers. One simply flew to various destinations with one flight, thus filling the airplane. So, and then at the beginning of the ’70s, this trend slowly developed where hubs were established – what is classically called a ‘hub’ today. And these hubs developed over the years and also improved with the advent of IT. And nowadays in this system, whether Frankfurt and Munich, but also Zurich, Vienna, and Brussels also play a role in the Lufthansa Group. And each hub also has a specific role. And, if you look at today’s route network, it’s completely different from before. We have almost no connections where we make a stopover, very few. We still do that in Africa or similar places, or in the Middle East. Otherwise, we have a lot of direct connections and bring many people from the continental network to the intercontinental network into the hubs, to connect people to the world, so to speak. And in our hubs, we also integrate new destinations, which are determined using complex tools that we have. But Martina can certainly tell a bit more about it than I can, because it’s actually her primary task to develop this network.

[AH] We’ll delve a little deeper into that in a moment. Ms Pichura, let’s take another look back at the first half of these one hundred years of Lufthansa. And the route network of the first German Lufthansa was not as complicated and sophisticated as it is today. You probably already suspect that. We broke it down with the historian Dr Andreas Greiner.

[VO] Flying – which is commonplace today, was not only an adventure 100 years ago, but also an economic and technical challenge. Moreover, it was a political issue. Why did Lufthansa, for example, fly specifically to Afghanistan or South America in the 1930s? And what did that have to do with diplomacy, propaganda, and parcel post? Topics that the historian Dr. Andreas Greiner from the German Historical Institute in Washington researches. Initially, Lufthansa gradually built up the route network in Central Europe, explains Greiner.

[AG] So, Lufthansa took over segments from earlier airlines in 1926 and initially built a network within Germany and Central Europe from Paris to Berlin, from Zurich to Hamburg, but also smaller routes. But then very soon realizes that these routes are actually not competitive against the very good railway networks of that time and tries to promote larger international routes to London, for example, but especially intercontinental routes to South America, North America, and Asia, because there the competition from ships can be outpaced.

[VO] And it does not do this alone. Even back then, airlines were forced to cooperate with each other despite economic competition and political rivalry among the states across Europe – with joint tickets, baggage rules, and coordinated flight schedules. However, economically, it was not a sure thing.

[AG] At the same time, Lufthansa cannot operate economically during the interwar period and is very dependent on German subsidies. The idea of the promotion is, of course, that Lufthansa, as a flag carrier, is a prestige object that is supposed to represent the German flag, German trade, and German diplomacy outside of Europe and internationally, at a time when Germany, as a loser of the First World War, is supposed to reestablish its international standing. And I believe it is important to understand that the Lufthansa management is not merely an executor of the whole thing, but rather pursues its own interests and in turn tries to operate economically and also to expand the network as broadly as possible.

[AG] The Reich wanted to show the flag. This was especially true in Asia. Routes over Iran, Afghanistan, China to Bangkok were attempts to politically and economically bypass British colonial policy and Soviet great power ambitions.

[AG] And there, the Foreign Office specifically tries with diplomacy, and trade also tries, Siemens and other companies try to penetrate, because business can still be done there that is not dominated by the Soviet Union or the British. Lufthansa is a very important factor, on one hand to promote trade, and on the other hand to truly support this connection through a real air link as symbolic politics.

[VO] The big coup: the North Atlantic route. Technically challenging, politically delicate. Lufthansa demonstrated enormous logistical ingenuity.

[AG] In the North Atlantic, it is clear to everyone involved that this is actually the prestige route, this is the Europe-to-USA-route. The most revenue will be made there, and there is the most traffic – nevertheless, the last intercontinental route to be inaugurated, just shortly before the start of the Second World War, sees the first passenger flights by Pan American Airways. The problem here is that this is simply the most difficult route. There are extreme headwinds, there are icy temperatures, and the airplanes of this time can only fly over shorter stages. Lufthansa has its own concept; they have so-called catapult ships. That means an airplane flies part of the route, then lands in the ocean, is picked up by a Lufthansa ship, refuelled, and then catapulted back into the air with a kind of giant slingshot and continues flying from there to New York.

[VO] That works, at least for postal traffic. The problem for Lufthansa was that they did not receive a landing license for passenger flights to the United States – for political reasons.

[AG] So it is clearly evident from the communication of the American Department of Commerce that it is connected with the National Socialist regime, with the occupation of Austria, and with the treatment of American Jews in Germany. It is clearly considered to deny Lufthansa these landing rights.

[VO] Thus, Lufthansa became somewhat of a pawn in politics. Hardly had it shed the role of a secret ‘substitute air force’ of the Weimar Republic, when National Socialism became a problem for route expansion, not only in the United States but also in South America.

[AG] For example, the Lufthansa subsidiary Syndicato Condor, which operates in Brazil and connects to Lufthansa’s South America route, suddenly faces political problems and is later nationalized, as there is a concern that it might essentially be a covert air force brigade that could form the vanguard of National Socialism in Latin America.

[VO] Thus, Lufthansa was simultaneously a prestige project, a propaganda tool, and a pioneer of modern aviation in the expansion of its route network – economically and technically ambitious, but also an object of trade interests, diplomacy, and German need for recognition.

[AH] So, you guessed it. Air travel in the 1930s was considerably more time-consuming than today. But even back then, Lufthansa already flew to such distant dream destinations as Rio de Janeiro, Baghdad, and Bangkok. Mr Abstoß, what criteria were used in the past and what criteria are used today to decide how often and with which aircraft a destination is served? You mentioned the tools earlier.

[MA] Yes, so in the past, it was actually more of a necessity due to political or similar reasons where one would fly. And nowadays, it’s very much economic reasons. And Martina will certainly be able to say more about that, because today we are, of course, superbly equipped on the IT side.

[AH] What can the tools do?

[MP] The tools actually support us quite well in deciding which destinations have what demand and also with which aircraft types we could connect the destination how often in the week, but also at, at what times. So that is already quite good or supportive in decision-making. And if you take an example from the recent past: last summer we added a new destination in the United States. Since then, we have been flying from Frankfurt to Raleigh-Durham. You can see that we are able to find destinations that are not over-served. And these tools help us quite well with that.

[AH] So, does that mean the software, or maybe even AI, has already revolutionized the whole thing to some extent? Or how does it work? I’m just curious.

[MP] You can imagine it like this: on one side, performance data or cost data from ourselves converge in such a tool, and then they are combined with data that we purchase externally. And this can be market data, passenger-dependent data, traffic flow data, competitors’ flight schedules, growth data. And when you combine all of this, you have incredible support in a tool for the work or in finding out, evaluating where we as Lufthansa can fly next.

[AH] And how is it ultimately decided where to fly? So, what criteria are then for the decision?

[MP] Actually, it’s a mix between economic, operational criteria, or also strategic conditions. On one hand, the demand must be there; legally it must of course be allowed and possible to fly there. Slots at airports can be a limiting factor. It can of course happen that we want to fly somewhere, but we don’t get a slot for it. That happens, for example. So it’s a mix of everything.

[AH] Not all planes can land everywhere or could land everywhere. But in the past, there was at least a bit more, let’s say, leeway in traffic regulations and even agreements with the competition. How did that work then?

[MA] So back in the day, it used to be the case that, at least in Europe, airlines coordinated with competitors in such a way that, for example, every day of the week there was a flight from Europe to Tokyo, with Lufthansa flying two days a week, Air France three days, and Alitalia the remaining two days. And I don’t even know, these days, Martina?

[MP] An absolute taboo actually, to talk with competitors. Unthinkable. Doesn’t happen. So we focus more on cooperating within alliances or in a deeper collaboration in the form of joint ventures, like what we as Lufthansa have with United and Air Canada. We actually have the strongest presence in the North Atlantic and offer, with not quite 300 destinations, the largest portfolio in the USA and Canada together in the alliance.

[AH] But this Star Alliance, this group, if you will, where so many airlines come together, aren’t they also competitors in the end? Or does it work differently?

[MA] So, they are actually sometimes competitors, but…

[AH] But…?

[MA] In the grand scheme of things, the idea behind such an alliance is indeed to work together or at least not to, let’s say, take the bread out of each other’s mouth, you know?

[AH] So, and within the Lufthansa Group, of course, there is collaboration. There are also various airlines, hubs, feeder flights. Does that already explain the hub structure, why it is the way it is?

[MA] So, indeed, each hub has potentially gained a role over time, you know? Just like Brussels is very much the Africa powerhouse. Frankfurt is more of a 360° hub nowadays. Whether it will stay that way in the future, we do not know, but that’s how it has developed. But now, I would like to hand the word back to Martina. For example, when considering where we fly to, does it make more sense in one hub than in another? Or are there also additions, such as offering New York, for example, from the hubs at different times?

[MP] Yes, you could perhaps also turn it around and just from the perspective, if we look at how many intercontinental aircraft or wide-body aircraft we have in the Lufthansa Group, two-thirds of them are in Frankfurt or fly out of Frankfurt. We have a 360° hub in Frankfurt and actually connect the entire world with each other. A good example of how we rely on feeder services at the hubs is a flight from Frankfurt to Chicago this March. Of 277 passengers on board, 250 did not come from Frankfurt, but from 56 locations around the world: Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Of the 277 guests who then land in Chicago, a large number of passengers also transfer with our airline partner United to 24 additional destinations in the USA.

[MA] Then there are also routes that might make more sense from certain destinations because of some historical situation – I already mentioned Brussels. Belgium had a much stronger connection to Africa than perhaps Germany did. That’s why the colleagues from Brussels Airlines fly much more into the centre of Africa than Lufthansa does. There are simply tasks that these hubs have, which differentiate between the hubs.

[AH] When does it happen, or what factors can trigger such disadvantageous, involuntary changes in the route network? Like losing slots?

[MP] There are various factors that influence the flight schedule and can lead to changes. These can be political, geopolitical changes, weather, changes in traffic regulations, more or fewer freedoms, the competitive environment can have an influence, but for example, broken down very simply, for instance, if we are not punctual and can no longer maintain our slots at the destinations we fly to. And so, for example, it can happen that we lose our slot in Riyadh and suddenly face the situation of not being able to fly there in the next period.

[MA] And in such cases, we have a team in our Network Planning, which is Slot Management. They then take care of possibly getting such slots back. This is not always very easy. The colleagues basically negotiate with all the slot coordinators in the world about the slots we need. These are the time windows for take-off and landing. And in the case of Riyadh, we actually had the situation that last summer, due to unpunctuality, we were delayed by more than 15 minutes on average, and then the slot was historically revoked from us. The colleagues then negotiated with the coordinator and there was a solution afterward. There was actually an airline that gave up its slots, and so we were able to connect the route to Frankfurt daily again. Otherwise, it would have been a disadvantage for Lufthansa if business travellers no longer had the option to come to Frankfurt every day, but only on certain days. The competition flies daily. It’s unfortunate if we can no longer fly daily.

[AH] Can that always be managed? Because the whole system is complex.

[MP] We always try to manage it, but of course, there can be hiccups here and there, and then we can’t get it done. It’s just external factors at play, and you don’t always have control over them.

[AH] Again for me: How many destinations does Lufthansa fly to now? So how is all this coordinated?

[MA] This summer, we are flying to predominantly 222 destinations from Frankfurt. That’s a nice number. I just recently stumbled upon the fact that we had such a repdigit this summer. And not every airport is coordinated. So, I’ll give an example: smaller airports in the Polish regions like in Poznań or something, they don’t have slots. The large airports have slots, and those are negotiated and coordinated.

[MP] A good example: New York, JFK. There, the slots are extremely limited and they are also extremely valuable. Our LH400 has always flown at the time we currently have in the system to JFK, and we will do everything to, for example, not give up such a slot.

[AH] Finally, perhaps a look into the future. What will network planning look like in the Cont and Intercont area in the future?

[MP] Interesting question. Certainly, the further development in the tools will play a big role, which will then make our work easier. Maybe artificial intelligence or definitely also artificial intelligence. Maybe we will get to the point where the simulations or the business cases we calculate daily can somehow be modelled in real time. I don’t know, but maybe that can happen, and if you look a bit at the framework conditions, there will certainly be innovations in aircraft types that will influence the entire route network. One can already see that narrow-body aircraft are increasingly found on intercontinental routes. This can naturally have an impact, allowing more and more “thinner” traffic flows to be connected, and this can naturally also affect the significance of hubs in the end.

[AH] So, does the structure ultimately change again in the hubs?

[MA] That is very possible. Especially, as Martina just mentioned, if we were to fly to smaller destinations in the United States with a 321, which we might not even have on the map today, as that is just developing, then it could be that our hub system, as we know it today, will change – broader or flatter. It’s anyway the question of how it will change. But we also lack a crystal ball, you know. We would really like to know ourselves how it will be. And, of course, IT continues to develop. We already mentioned artificial intelligence, and we have already tried it, but so far it doesn’t produce results we would want to use. Humans are still actually better, but everything is evolving. I think we are all curious about that.

[AH] Now I’m going to look into the crystal ball again, even though I’m not supposed to, because none of us know. But how do you envision such a route network, for example, in 2040? So, do we have more, do we have fewer destinations? Will it be very different? Because I mean, we live in an incredibly dynamic, volatile world.

[MA] So, I do wish that we fly to more destinations. How we will connect these additional destinations, I can’t answer that, because it will probably change, just due to the aircraft we will receive in the future. We will also get some smaller intercontinental aircraft and, as a result, we will simply be able to offer more destinations than we do today. Whether we will fly more in Europe, I don’t know. Domestic flights within Germany will also change again.

[MP] Honestly, I would also like to look into the crystal ball, but I agree with Magnus and can imagine that we will have more destinations in the portfolio, partly because we will directly connect smaller traffic flows.

[AH] Martina Pichura, Magnus Abstoß, thank you both, network planning experts, for the many explanations about Lufthansa’s route network yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Now I have an exciting part because I thought… I admire you very much for that, just by the way. How do you remember all the abbreviations for the airports?

[MP] That comes automatically at some point. It’s not about learning vocabulary, it just comes automatically, right?

[MA] So, it comes automatically. For me, it’s a bit like that because it’s my hobby, because I was already involved with it back then.

[AH] And where would, where would your next destination be in three letters?

[MA] KIX.

[AH] JFK.

[AH] I know that. Not yours, …

[MA] Osaka.

[AH] … Mr Abstoß? Osaka. I actually wanted to ... I thought we could just say out there: “Just guess or look it up.” For me, the next one is just BER. So, thank you again. And ‘future’, a good keyword, because at the end of 100 years of Lufthansa and our second season of ‘Above and Beyond’, next time we want to take a look at the coming 100 years. How will we fly in the future? Electric, with frying fat, or will it perhaps be hydrogen and fuel cells after all? And which pioneering projects is Lufthansa already pursuing today? The answers will be in the next episode. Until then!

[VO] That was Above and Beyond—the podcast of Lufthansa Airlines. More insights into aviation will be available in the next episode. And for those who don't want to wait that long, follow our Instagram channel lufthansaviews. As always, you can find all the links in the show notes.