Lufthansa’s Destination Of The Week: BERLIN

Each week Lufthansa showcases a city in Europe for flyers to visit. Along with that focus they offer promotional airfares for travelers to visit that city. This week Lufthansa looks homeward and selects Berlin as this week’s destination of choice.

Berlin is one of those cities that has seen it all, especially in the 20th century, but has now transformed itself into a 21st century destination. After WWII, Berlin was essentially the “Capitol” of the cold war. The memories of that Era are everywhere. From Checkpoint Charlie and the remainder of the Berlin Wall, to antique Trabants that still “rattle” along the Straße.

What I like about Berlin is how the city has taken memories and reminders from its darkest hours, and transformed them into reasons to draw millions of visitors a year. Today, visitors can walk through and around the very sites and landmarks that were once off limits. Berlin has also emerged as a home to some of Europe’s best Museums, Restaurants and Night Life.

Berlin will be served by a new airport beginning in mid-2012 as construction on the new Berlin Brandenberg Airport nears completion on the site where the former Schönefeld airport had stood for decades. The airport is a state of the art project that will help Berlin draw substantial traffic through its gates. Lufthansa has been a key partner in making Brandenberg Airport a reality.

So if you’re thinking of visiting a Christmas Market (there’s still plenty of time), or seeing one of the most mysterious cities of the 20th century, choose Berlin. I think you’ll be surprised just what a great City it is!

Lufthansa is currently offering attractive fares from the US to Berlin. Here are some examples (Roundtrip airfare/including taxes):

New York $875.00
Atlanta $1001.00 (curious about the $1.00!)
Boston $940.00
Miami $875.00
Chicago $995.00
San Francisco $1045.00

Some of the flights may be codeshared with Air Canada or United/Continental

And of course, some of the terms of the fare:

Purchase your tickets by Nov 30, 2011 (Hurry!)
Depart by: Dec 14, 2011
Advance purchase: 7 days
Maximum stay: 3 months

For more information and additional fares: Please visit Lufthansa’s Destination Of the Week site.

American Airlines Files For Bankruptcy Protection

Invalid request error occurred.The parent company for American Airlines, AMR, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this morning.

The board announced the decision stating that it was in the best interest of the company to go through this reorganization.

During the process, American Airlines services will remain unaffected. Flights will take place as scheduled. Members of American’s Frequent Flyer program, AAdvantage will remain unaffected. As is normal for an airline going through a reorganization, operations will continue as scheduled during this process

Shareholders and Creditors are the parties that stand to be affected the most by this filing. Typically in a structured reorganization Shareholders in the company lose their equity since a company comes out of a reorganization as a new corporation, issuing new shares. Former shareholders are not entitled to any new shares as part of this. Creditors normally enter into agreements with the old company that will attempt to make them whole. In some cases, creditors are issued equity in the new company.

As we’ve seen with previous airline bankruptcies, travelers are generally left unaffected. So if you are an American Airlines Loyalist or member or Aadvantage, I don’t think you have much to worry about, and there’s good chance you’ll have a better airline after they get through this process.

For more information on this breaking story, here are the various news media links you can reference:

Bloomberg

Reuters

Fox Business News

CNN

LufthansaFlyer’s Airline Photo Contest Winner For Week 1

Congratulations To The Winner For Week 1 Of My Airline Photo Contest!

The Winning Image submitted by Robert S. :
Beautiful picture capturing an approach to Boston (BOS).
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Now before everyone starts crying foul that I picked a Lufthansa Airplane, the fact that its Lufthansa had NO BEARING on my decision. Out of all the entries, this was the nicest one.

An Honorable Mention has to go to Michelle S. for this shot:

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Robert wins an I-tunes gift card for his efforts. Thanks to everyone for entering. We had about 20 entries, so I would definitely like to see the amount of entries increase. If you are reading about the contest for the first time, please go back to my original post for the details.