I had pretty much settled on flying Lufthansa to Frankfurt (leaving from Orlando) but then saw it's really Discover Airlines. Reviews I'm finding are not good, and I'd like to hear what people who use the RS travel forum report. I don't care about Wifi on the plane, but do care about flight cancellations (and lost luggage), and also of course about safety.
Posted by
Southeast US
4046 posts
Discover Airlines is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lufthansa. Lufthansa has turned some long-haul flying over to this "quality leisure airline" subsidiary, including Orlando-Frankfurt flights. As an aside, Lufthansa LOVES wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Read Discover Airlines' profile of itself on its website: https://www.discover-airlines.com/en/our-company/
OR
Read Discover Airlines history on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Airlines
I would expect any sort of cancellation would result in rebooking through Lufthansa's channels, including Star Alliance partners like United, but you may want to call to find out how that would work.
Posted by
Berlin
3008 posts
Discover Arlines fills the portfolio gap of Lufthansa group in the charter business which completes their manifod existing line business. in earlier days this was Condor which grew into the wrong direction. Most people on this platform do not know the difference between these fundamental two different business models in passenger aviation market.
I would not care about the ratings because they are NO representative survey. These few revenge ratings from people who are not able to handle their own disappointment are not worth to be considered by anybody. Tip: Strike out every rating from a user wit lessthan 5 or 10 ratings.
By rough estimation Discover shall carry between 8-10k passengers per day with 27 own planes. The platform Trustpilot has 116 ratings in total. So you can see how low this number is compared to the business volume they are carrying out. For me it is more an indicator that not more revenge character people are posting ratings.
As an aside, Lufthansa LOVES wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Not really. Since the mid 80s LH group is more known for non-financial strategic alliances (synced fight plans, code sharing, common used facilities, ...) than for financial involvements. The counter example was British Airways which learned hard and expensively that their strategy of investing before cooperation was not more successful. So they copied the Star Alliance approach by co-founding One World two years later.
By the way: all this were part of my business and management studies.
Posted by
OP
Bloomington
39 posts
Thanks for your replies.
Posted by
Southeast US
4046 posts
As an aside, Lufthansa LOVES wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Not really.
Respectfully, all of the following are wholly-owned by Lufthansa...
Air Brussels
Austrian Airlines
Eurowings based in Düsseldorf (with its subsidiary Eurowings Europe that is based in Malta)
Discover Airlines (formerly Eurowings Discover)
Swiss Airlines
Lufthansa Regional (with subsidiaries Air Dolomiti, Lufthansa CityLine, and Lufthansa City -- the last began operations in summer 2024 with the stated goal of filling markets that Lufthansa CityLine cannot fill -- though unions say it exists only to circumvent union agreements)
Plus 50% ownership in SunExpress (joint venture with Turkish Airlines)
Plus approval for 41% ownership of ITA Airlines (with planned full control in the future)
Posted by
Berlin
3008 posts
Fully owning three external airlines is not "loving" - they were bought occasionally for a different reason. Even medium-sized charter airlines have more holdings and significant investments - not talking about other DAX index companies.