Lufthansa Will Resume Iraq Service
CHICAGO
) --
Lufthansa
said it will resume flights to Iraq in April after a 20-year break.
The German carrier will fly a 132-seat Airbus A319 between its Frankfurt hub and Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq, a distance of about 2,000 miles, starting on April 25. The flight will operate four days a week. Erbil is Iraq's fourth largest city.
Lufthansa said demand for flights to Iraq is growing amid signs of an economic recovery and it intends to resume flights later this year to Baghdad, The carrier is continuing to expand its Middle Eastern service, and with the Iraq flights will offer 100 weekly flights to 15 destinations in 12 countries.
Only two other major airlines,
Austrian
and
Turkish
, offer service to Iraq. Austrian, part of the Lufthansa group and a member of Star Alliance, has flown to Erbil since 2006.
Among U.S. carriers,
Continental
(CAL) - Get Report
,
United
( UAUA) and
US Airways
(LCC)
are also Star members and offer frequent flights to Frankfurt.
United also flies non-stop from its Washington Dulles hub to Dubai and Kuwait, and plans to begin connecting service to Bahrain this spring.
Delta
(DAL) - Get Report
has Middle East service from New York to Amman and Cairo and from Atlanta to Dubai.
-- Written by Ted Reed in Charlotte, N.C.
.
