FLUG REVUE September 2006: 50 years of Condor

September 2006

50 YEARS OF CONDOR

By Sebastian Steinke

The history of Condor dates back to 21 December 1955 when a joint venture was founded by shipping companies Norddeutscher Lloyd (27.75 percent) and Hamburg-Amerika Linie (27.75 percent), the airline Deutsche Lufthansa (26 percent) and the German railway Deutsche Bundesbahn (18.5percent). Deutsche Flugdienst GmbH (DFG)'s fleet consisted of three twin-engined, 36-seat Vickers Viking 1B (D-ABOM, D-AFUS, D-AGIL) acquired second-hand from BEA. Initially they were maintained by Airwork Ltd. in London. Three captains, two radio operators, two flight engineers and the chief engineer were loaned from there as well. Lufthansa provided three co-pilots, three flight attendants and four mechanics.

Flying operations at the home base of Frankfurt am Main actually commenced on 29 March 1956 with a pilgrimage flight taking a party of Americans to Israel. Majorca and the Canary Island of Tenerife were soon added to the flight schedule.

In 1958 the fleet was extended to include five Convair 240's and a fourth Viking. Deutsche Flugdienst GmbH now had a staff of 168 and annual sales of ten million deutschmarks. Engineering and flight operations were taken over by Lufthansa, which in 1959 increased its stake to 95.5 percent of the equity capital and the following year became the sole shareholder.

Only in 1961 did the company change its name to Condor Flugdienst GmbH (CFG) after the rights to use the name and the fleet of Condor-Luftreederei GmbH, a company which had been set up in 1957 with two Convair 440's but was operating at a loss, were acquired from Rudolf A. Oetker. The name Condor is a reminder, not just to old Lufthanseats, of the legendary Syndicato Condor Ltda, a predecessor of Varig which was founded in Brazil in 1927.

In 1961 the Convair 240's were sold and replaced by two Vickers Viscount 814's owned by Lufthansa. Condor Flugdienst GmbH achieved a 63.3 percent share of the German tourist air travel market, with 61,000 passengers. In 1963 the Neckermann mail-order company became one of Condor's customers for the first time. The foundations were laid for a partnership lasting many decades. By 1964 Condor was the largest German charter operator. Palma de Mallorca was the most important destination, with 73,000 passengers on that route alone.

Condor entered the jet age in 1965 with the acquisition of its first three-engine Boeing 727. The fleet still included four Viscount 814's and two Fokker F.27's. In 1966 the first long-haul flights were flown to Thailand, Ceylon, Kenya and the Dominican Republic. There were 27 destinations on the flight schedule. By the end of the 1970s, the fleet had been reinforced with further Boeing 727's and the first Boeing 707. The commercial headquarters were relocated to Neu-Isenburg/Gravenbruch, close to Frankfurt airport.

From 1969 Condor's fleet consisted entirely of jet aircraft. Following the take-over of Südflug, there were now 430 staff working for Condor. After acquiring a further two Boeing 707's, Condor took the pioneering step of becoming the first charter airline in the world to order the Boeing 747. The first giant with 470 seats (D-ABYH) was given the nickname of “Max”, while the second one, which arrived in 1972, was known as “Moritz”.

Max, serial number 186, was later to acquire notoriety long after its successful years at Condor: having been retired from Condor and leased to Korea through an American company, on 1 September 1983 as flight KAL007 it was shot down over the Soviet island of Sakhalin with 269 people on board.

But to return to the early 1970s, in September 1972 a Condor jet was the first West German commercial aircraft to land in Leipzig on a trade fair special flight, an event of great significance in East-West German history. Flying directly over the intra-German border was not allowed. It was not until the autumn of 1989 that Lufthansa in its turn flew to Leipzig.

In 1974 the purely Boeing fleet consisted of two 747's, two 707's and 13 Boeing 727's. Thanks to the oil crisis, fuel costs shot up by DM 24 million just in the summer of 1974. The following year 1.85 million passengers were carried, but thereafter demand was flat until 1978, when things picked up again and Condor exceeded the DM 500 million sales mark, carrying two million passengers. In 1979 a new three-engine jet joined the fleet in the form of the DC-10. The 747 was taken out of service as it had proved too big for the twice-weekly services that many tour operators wanted. However, 747-400 D-ABTD “Hamburg” continued to fly to Taiwan on Deutsche Lufthansa's behalf into the 1990s, still with full Condor paintwork. Lufthansa was hoping by this means to avoid diplomatic complications with China.

Back to the early 1980s. After further economic and industry instability, in 1981 the fleet consisted of eleven DC-10-30's (the long-haul version), eleven Boeing 727's and three Boeing 737's. In 1982 Contour achieved a German market share of 20 percent. The following year two A300B4's were the first Airbus types to join the fleet. From 1985 Condor was the first charter airline to fly the A310. In 1986 it carried 2.66 million passengers.

Then, on 2 January 1988, Boeing 737-230, D-ABHD, crashed on the approach to Izmir with 16 crew members onboard. There were no survivors.

In 1989 the Boeing 727, a reliable but now uneconomic workhorse, was retired from the fleet, to be succeeded by the slender 757-200. Condor took over Südflug, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa-Holding.

In November 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 757-200 D-ABNE was the first Condor jet to land in Berlin Schoenefeld. However, plans to found a joint venture with the loss-making East German airline, Interflug, under the name of “InterCondor” came to nothing.

Under the catchphrase of “Condor Flüge individuell” [“Condor tailored flights”] single seats were sold directly to end customers for the first time. In 1990 Condor set a new passenger record with 3.11 million passengers.

In 1991 the A310-203 was replaced by the Boeing 767-300ER. Condor now introduced a “Comfort Class” which offered a higher standard of quality. From then on the company used the airline code of DE instead of DF (as in “Deutsche Flugdienst”). In 1992 Condor and Südflug merged their flying operations. The fleet now consisted of three Boeing 767's, 15 Boeing 757's, 9 Boeing 737's and 3 DC-10's. Its workforce numbered almost 2,000. Condor was now flying to 70 destinations with 460 weekly connections. In 1995 Condor broke through the 2 billion deutschmark sales threshold, carrying over six million passengers. Its maintenance operations were taken over by Condor/Cargo Technik (CCT), a joint venture between Condor (70 percent) and Lufthansa Cargo (30 percent). Condor also acquired a 40 percent stake in Turkish airline SunExpress from Lufthansa. Condor's tourism network now included participations in Alpha Holding GmbH (30 percent), Kreutzer Touristik (37.5 percent), Fischer Reisen (100 percent) and Öger Tours (10 percent).

In 1996 Condor became the launch customer of the stretched version of the Boeing 757, the 757-300, placing an order for twelve aircraft. In 1997 Condor increased its participations in Kreutzer, Fischer and Air Marin to 100 percent. Lufthansa and Karstadt Quelle AG merged NUR Touristik GmbH and Condor Flugdienst GmbH into the integrated tourist group of C&N Touristic AG (today Thomas Cook AG). Both shareholders owned 50 percent of the new company.

In 1998 a subsidiary was founded in Berlin Schoenefeld in the form of Condor Berlin GmbH (CBG), which offered jobs to a large number of former employees of Interflug. By 2001 CBG's sub-fleet had been built up to twelve A320's.

In 2002 the Condor fleet changed its visual appearance. The name Condor which was familiar in Germany was replaced on the fuselage by the internationally better-known name of Thomas Cook. Only a small qualifier, “Powered by Condor” or “Powered by Condor Berlin”, betrayed the true identity of the airline.

In the wake of the aviation crisis triggered by the events of 11 September 2001, the fleet shed twelve Boeing 757-200's. It now consisted of nine Boeing 767-300's, thirteen Boeing 757-300's, twelve Airbus A320's and one Boeing 757-200. Smoking was banned from the passenger cabin in November 2003.

In May 2004, the name Condor was once more blazoned in uppercase letters on the now light blue and white fuselage sides. Too many regular customers had missed “their” familiar Condor. Instead of the erstwhile Condor “paperclip”, the tailfins now bore the Thomas Cook logo with the nickname “Spiegelei” [“Fried egg”].

But the recent changes went far deeper than just the surface. The holiday flight market had changed. While the old package holidays lost ground in the mass market and divided into a low-cost and a luxury segment, more and more passengers wanted to choose their own combination of flight, hotel, rental car and catering. With a new internet website, Condor started to cater for these individual travellers, who were offered bargain tickets for a fixed timetable from Euro29 for medium distances and, for the first time in the German long-haul business, from Euro99 for long-haul destinations, following the model of the no-frills airlines.

Following an internal restructuring programme, Condor succeeded in picking up market share again and today carries 7.25 million passengers to 77 destinations from 14 German departure airports. When it comes to future growth, the company is increasingly thinking of non-tourist destinations and already sees itself as a “leading recreation airline”. In Munich, Condor has established a kind of low-cost scheduled service hub. All flights from Frankfurt and Munich can be extended to include rail tickets at concessionary rates under the Rail & Fly scheme. The winter flight schedule for 2006/2007 contains 27 short-haul and medium-haul destinations and 34 long-haul destinations. Between November 2005 and May 2006 the single seat business grew by 20 percent. It already accounts for 36 percent of total sales.

From page 20 of FLUG REVUE 9/2006

Last updated 15 August 2006

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