German Airways is a German charter airline based at Cologne / Bonn Airport. Until the name change at the end of 2020, the company was called WDL Aviation, but had already been operating under the German Airways umbrella brand for several months.
History
The airline was originally founded as WDL Flugdienst in 1974. The predecessor, founded by Theodor Wüllenkemper on July 29, 1955, received the second operating license from an airline in the Federal Republic of Germany after Lufthansa. The airline's headquarters were once Essen, with Essen-Mülheim Airport serving as the base.
For several years, WDL Aviation connected the headquarters in Toulouse with the Hamburg Finkenwerder and Bristol offices for Airbus in the passenger factory traffic. The airline also completed medical flights with two Learjets, for example for Royal Jet.
Until 2011, WDL Aviation also flew three Fokker F-27 freight for companies such as TNT Express, UPS and Farnair Europe.
WDL Aviation was taken over by the Berlin logistics company Zeitfracht on October 1st, 2017. The airline became a member of IATA at the end of 2020. German Airways has been a member of the European Regions Airline Association (ERA), an association in European regional air traffic, since spring 2020.
In mid-2020, German Airways presented the LIGAFLIEGER marketing brand, which focuses on charter offers for sports teams. Customers include national and international football clubs as well as teams at national level. Customers of other team sports such as basketball and rugby as well as teams from the motorsport sector also use the charter services.
Services
German Airways' business model comprises two main lines of business. These include charter flights and flight services under wet lease contracts for other airlines such as Air France, ITA Airways, BA Cityflyer and Luxair, KLM Cityhopper ad Binter Canarias. German Airways offers both ad hoc services in charter and wet lease services, but also medium and long-term services over several years.
German Airways mainly operates flights to German and European destinations on behalf of its customers.
Fleet
As of 2024, the German Airways fleet consists presently of eight modern Embraer 190 aircraft.
