German LCC starts flying to Thailand

Eurowings, Germany’s low-cost leisure carrier, has launched its first flights to Thailand.

The first new direct route from Cologne-Bonn Airport to Phuket departed on Friday, while the second route to Bangkok took off from Germany on Sunday.

Eurowings, which is a subsidiary of Lufthansa, will now operate both routes twice a week using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft with 310 econony class seats. Despite being an LCC, Eurowings aircraft will provide all passengers within-flight entertainment.

Eurowings is advertising one-way fares from EUR200 (US$217) for the Bangkok route and from EUR220 for the Phuket service, and said the inaugural Phuket flight on Friday was fully booked.

“As of today, we’re continuing to round out the Eurowings long-haul programme with a total of two new destinations in Asia,” said Oliver Wagner, a member of Eurowings management. “We’re already able to offer a highly attractive range at very competitive prices and we’ll be expanding this significantly again in the coming months. This means that Eurowings is well-positioned not just for European travel but also for long-haul destinations.”

The Bangkok flights will depart Cologne-Bonn Airport every Wednesday and Sunday, with the return flights then departing Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport every Thursday and Monday. On the Phuket route, the outbound flights will depart Cologne-Bonn every Monday and Friday and the return flights leave Phuket every Tuesday and Saturday.

The launch of flights to Thailand marks the latest stage of Eurowings’ long-haul expansion. The airline has already started flying to destinations in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and its inaugural flights to Dubai also launched late last week.

These new routes become the first low-cost flights between Europe and Southeast Asia since AirAsia X suspended its flights from Kuala Lumpur to London and Paris in 2012.