Lufthansa has postponed the launch of new service between Frankfurt and Panama City by approximately 3 months.
Originally, Lufthansa was set to begin 5x/week service on November 16, 2015. It has now rescheduled the launch to March 2, 2016.
I suspect that the delay is due to low load/booking factors for the flights when reservations for the route opened back in February of this year.
This seems like an insane route. Panama City isn’t that big. It would be like launching a Frankfurt-Moline, Illinois route. Unless there is some German business entity in the area which would make it a commuting route. I guess there are some German auto plants in Alabama but they would just hub through Atlanta. I would have picked a larger city like St. Louis, Kansas City, Austin, Milwaukee, Tampa or something like that.
I think they want to play off of COPA’s route network to South & Latin America.
Panama City, Panama BTW. Not florida…..
Panama Ciudad metro area is home to around 1,800,000 people. Since 2010, Panama remains the second most competitive economy in Latin America with an averaging GDP over 10.4% from 2006-2008. It is predicted to be the fastest growing from 2009-2014. Not only is this area up and coming for finance, business and tourism, but it is surely a hub for all South American routes for the Star Alliance Network that are not reached directly from Europe ( like Peru, Equador, Columbia, Brasil, etc.). To date you can fly directly from PTY to Madrid, London, Paris and Amsterdam. That’s all there is to Europe and continuing to the Middle East and Far East.
Sirry it does make sense! Panama City REPUBLIC OF PANAMA……not Florida……