in 2004 operated for
Air Berlin in 2011
Independent company Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter was founded in 1980 by Bernd Walter, the owner of a flying school at
Dortmund Airport. Initially, LGW offered on-demand charter and
air taxi services. At that time, it had 25 employees and the
Dornier 228, with its capacity of 19 passengers, was the largest airliner in its fleet.
Partnership with Air Berlin In 2007, LGW entered into a partnership with
Air Berlin, which at the time was the second largest German airline. Effective 12 October of that year, LGW flights to
Düsseldorf Airport and
Berlin Tegel Airport were sold via the Air Berlin booking engine. In 2008, Air Berlin added the
De Havilland Dash 8-400 to its fleet. The ten aircraft of that type were
leased to LGW and operated on regional routes. Subsequently, LGW discontinued its independent corporate identity. It no longer offered any chartered services, but operated scheduled flights on behalf of Air Berlin, using Air Berlin flight numbers and branding. The website
lgw.de was shut down and replaced with a redirect to
airberlin.com. On 2 March 2009, Air Berlin notified the
Federal Cartel Office that it would become the controlling shareholder of LGW. As LGW staff did not have a
collective agreement, salaries were considerably lower than at Air Berlin. Since that year, LGW also employed
jet pilots, as a number of
Embraer 190 aircraft were transferred to the airline from
Niki (another Air Berlin subsidiary), the first of which arrived on 14 March and left the fleet in November 2013. By spring 2015, LGW increased their fleet of
De Havilland Dash 8-400s from 12 to 17. In May 2017, Air Berlin announced plans to buy Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter outright, having held a controlling stake since 2009.
Sale to Lufthansa Lufthansa bought LGW in 2017 as part of Air Berlin's bankruptcy proceedings. After Air Berlin ceased operations on 27 October 2017, LGW started
wetlease operations for
Eurowings, taking over parts of the wetlease agreement previously provided by its parent for the Lufthansa subsidiary. In addition to its existing fleet of Dash 8-Q400 aircraft, it received 13
Airbus A320-family aircraft The acquisition was closed in January 2018 after receiving approval from the
European Commission on 21 December 2017. In late 2018, all LGW
Airbus A320 family aircraft were moved to other companies within the Eurowings network.
Sale to Zeitfracht Group and rebranding In January 2019, it was reported that Lufthansa planned to sell LGW to
Zeitfracht, which already owns German ACMI and charter airline German Airways (formerly branded WDL Aviation). Zeitfracht had already purchased parts of Air Berlin's maintenance division. The deal was completed on 1 April 2019, following the approval of supervisory authorities and the fulfillment of customary conditions. The takeover also marked the beginning of a longer-term lease agreement between LGW and Eurowings. In May 2019, LGW announced it would replace all of its
De Havilland Dash 8-400s with newer
Embraer 190s from late 2019. These aircraft will be operated for
Eurowings as part of a long-term lease. In March 2020, Zeitfracht announced a rebranding for LGW which became
German Airways operating within the
German Airways branding alongside sister company
WDL Aviation. In April 2020, the company filed for
insolvency with plans to restructure due to the cancellation of
Eurowings' wetlease contract for their entire
Bombardier DHC-8-400 fleet in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic. ==Destinations==