Lufthansa Seeks To Launch Service To Iraq

Lufthansa announced this week that it has applied for traffic rights to fly from Frankfurt and Munich to Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. The airline hopes to launch the services this summer, although it did warn that "further infrastructure requirements are being examined."

If Lufthansa succeeds in launching a Baghdad service, it will become the first major Western European carrier to resume flights to the Iraqi capital since the first Gulf crisis of 1990. However, newly acquired Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines already operates between Vienna and Erbil. The little-known Viking Airlines flies a weekly service aimed predominantly at the visiting friends and relations market from Stockholm to Baghdad and also to Erbil, while both Turkish Airlines and Iraqi Airways serve Istanbul-Baghdad.

An Iraqi Airways representative in the United Kingdom told EuroBTN his airline hopes to launch London-Baghdad flights "in the next couple of months."

Lufthansa added it is aiming to expand its Middle Eastern route network. It currently serves 14 destinations in 11 countries in the region.