Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter

Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter

IATA HE ICAO LGW Callsign WALTER
Founded	1980
Hubs	Düsseldorf International Airport
Secondary hubs	Berlin-Tegel Airport
Frequent-flyer program	topbonus
Alliance	Cooperation with Air Berlin
Fleet size	10
Destinations
Headquarters	Dortmund, Germany
Website	www.lgw.de

LGW - Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter Dornier Do 228

LGW is a German regional airline officially known as Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter mbH . Since 2007, LGW has been owned by Air Berlin. The Dortmund based airline transported about 50,000 passengers in 2003 and the expected sales is 13 million Euro in 2004. The company has approximately 75 employees who are working in flight operations, maintenance, ground operations, booking, flight-school and administration.^{[citation needed]}

LGW operates scheduled operations throughout Germany and Europe on behalf of Air Berlin, as well as chartered flights from their base at Dortmund Airport.

History

The company was founded by German pilot instructor Bernd Walter, who still is the owner and CEO of LGW, at Dortmund Wickede Airport in 1980. At the outset the small company offered flights to German North Sea islands, sightseeing-flights and flight-training with a single Cessna U 206 "Stationair". In 1988 LGW expanded with buying a Britten-Norman Islander for the North Sea flights.^{[citation needed]}

After German reunification LGW was one of the first German airlines which started flights from West Germany to the former German Democratic Republic. LGW connected with Cessna 404 Dortmund with Berlin, Erfurt and other cities in former East Germany. As of 1992 the fleet was replaced by Dornier Do 228. In the meantime LGW took up new routes (e.g. from/to Hanover, Paderborn/Lippstadt or Rostock/Laage) and became one of the biggest regional airlines in North Rhine-Westphalia. In the following years LGW took over many routes, which were left by other airlines, e.g. the route Dortmund-Nuremberg (in 2002, ex. Eurowings), Dortmund-Stuttgart (in 2003, ex. European Air Express) and Dortmund-Berlin-Tempelhof (in 2004, ex. City Air Germany).^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Air Berlin started a cooperation with LGW and took over trading and booking of their scheduled flights. Since January 15, 2009 there are no more scheduled flights under the HE IATA-code. LGW uses leased Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft to fly domestic and European low-density routes for Air Berlin. Their fleet of Dornier and other aircraft will be used for air taxi and charter flights.

Fleet

Bombardier Dash 8 Q400

As of November 2009 the LGW commercial fleet includes [1] :

• 10 Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (Air Berlin livery)

These aircraft are brand-new (average age of 0.5 years).

LGW is also in possession of 2 Cessna 172^{[citation needed]} and 2 Cessna 152 for pilot training, charter and sightseeing flights.

External links

• Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter