Star Alliance member Lufthansa has announced a seven per cent increase in capacity on services between London Heathrow and Frankfurt during the summer 2014 schedule. From March 30, 2014 all of its flights on this busy international route will be operated by larger Airbus A320 and A321 equipment, rather than some smaller A319s, resulting in almost 1,000 additional seats every week.

As part of its revised schedule, the airline is also improving the timing of its flights with some subtle timetable adjustments that will make it easier and more convenient for passengers by creating a better spread of our 12 daily services between Heathrow and Frankfurt in both directions across the day. Lufthansa currently offers the highest number of frequencies between London and Frankfurt of any airline, but faces direct competition from British Airways.

“I am delighted that we are able to make this added commitment to our passengers across the South East of England. We are also further improving the convenience of our flights,” said Christian Schindler, General Manager UK & Ireland, Lufthansa. “Replacing the smaller Airbus A319 aircraft which currently operate some of our flights is the most efficient way to increase the number of seats available within the number of arrival and departure slots available to us at Heathrow.”

According to data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a total of 1,482,459 passengers travelled on the London Heathrow – Frankfurt route in 2012, up 0.9 per cent on the previous year. An estimated 60.3 per cent of this traffic was point-to-point demand with the remainder taking advantage of Lufthansa’s hub operation in the German city to connect onto other destinations across its network; the most popular being Johannesburg in South Africa; Seoul Incheon in South Korea and Lagos in Nigeria, according to our analysis. Lufthansa had an estimated 58 per cent share of the total bi-directional O&D traffic on the route in 2012, with average fares similar to those of its UK rival.