Lufthansa Sees Malaysia As Lucrative Aviation Market For Leisure, Business Travel

By Kisho Kumari Sucedaram

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 (Bernama) -- The Lufthansa Group, which is strengthening its presence in Southeast Asia, views Malaysia as a lucrative aviation market, especially for leisure and business travellers as airlines recalibrate networks and seek growth opportunities beyond the increasingly volatile Middle East region.

Felipe Bonifatti, Lufthansa Group’s vice president Asia Pacific, Middle East and Joint Ventures East, said Malaysia’s role in global supply chains, particularly in sectors such as semiconductors and automotive manufacturing, makes it an attractive destination for business travel.

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As part of its expansion in Malaysia, Lufthansa Airlines last Thursday launched its new non-stop flights between Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Frankfurt with flights commencing on Oct 25, 2026.

Flights can be booked immediately, according to the airlines.

The German carrier will be operating five weekly services, deploying its newest cabin product, Allegris, which offers 28 business class seats, 28 premium economy seats and 231 economy class seats on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

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Bonifatti said Germany is Malaysia’s biggest trade partner in Europe, with more than 700 German companies based here.

“If we include other European companies, we are talking about thousands,” he told Bernama in a recent exclusive interview here. 

This therefore creates a very strong background for the group to look into when Lufthansa could start operations again in Malaysia and how successful this service could be.

The Lufthansa Group is a European aviation group with worldwide operations. Its business segments consist of passenger airlines, logistics, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), as well as additional businesses.

The passenger airlines business segment includes the network airlines Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and ITA Airways.

Expect healthy mixture of leisure, business travellers

Lufthansa Airlines will be the only airline with non-stop flights to Malaysia from the Lufthansa Group home markets, namely Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.

He said this is due to the huge presence of German companies in Malaysia as well as the country’s tourism appeal that continues to draw visitors from Europe.

“We expect a healthy mix of leisure travellers and business travellers. Malaysia is an important industrial hub but also a worldwide tourism destination,” he said.

The Kuala Lumpur-Frankfurt route will offer about 150,000 seats annually between Germany and Malaysia, targeting a balanced mix of business and leisure travellers.

Passengers travelling from Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asia region will also benefit from Lufthansa’s global connectivity through Frankfurt, one of the group’s six major hubs.

“From there, travellers could connect to more than 250 destinations worldwide, including cities across Europe, North America, Central America and South America,” he said.

Bonifatti said the new Kuala Lumpur service forms part of Lufthansa Group’s broader plan to expand its presence in Southeast Asia, where travel demand has rebounded strongly following the pandemic.

“Southeast Asia is a place where the Lufthansa Group would like to have a bigger footprint and we are working on that,” he stressed. 

Expansion plans on board

To date, the group has established routes in Singapore and Thailand for the region. 

He said campaigns such as Visit Malaysia 2026 as well as global tourism promotion efforts, including the recent Internationale Tourismus-Borse (ITB) Berlin, travel trade fair in Berlin, Germany, have further raised Malaysia’s visibility among European travellers.

Future options include increasing the service to daily flights, deploying larger aircraft or linking Kuala Lumpur with additional European hubs such as Munich, Zurich or Vienna.

“For the moment, the focus is on making Kuala Lumpur successful, but in the future it could mean daily flights, larger aircraft or connecting the city with more hubs in our network.

“We review a list of potential destinations every year, and Asia-Pacific remains a region with strong growth potential,” he said.

Lufthansa started flights to Malaysia for the first time in 1980, and had offered the services with a stopover in Bangkok and thereafter direct flights before it ceased operations to Kuala Lumpur in 2016. 

Sustainability at the core front 

In support of sustainability efforts, he said Boeing 787 Dreamliner was selected not only for passenger comfort but also for its fuel efficiency and sustainability features.

“The Dreamliner is one of the most fuel-efficient aircraft in our fleet, reducing fuel consumption and noise while offering our newest onboard product,” he said.

He said sustainability has always been part of the DNA for many years as a European group, as it plays an important role in a much broader way. 

“We are actively pursuing transformation toward more sustainable aviation and ambitious carbon neutral by 2050, and reducing net carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, compared to 2019,” he said.

Lufthansa Airlines was the first airline in the world to trial the use of sustainable aviation fuel in 2011 on regular flight operations. 

Lufthansa Group is in the midst of the largest investment of 2 billion euros (RM9.184 billion) in fleet modernisation in history, which will be 30 per cent more efficient on average.

-- BERNAMA