easyJet Europe (EC, Vienna) is set to re-enter the German domestic market on December 1, 2021, when it will launch 12x weekly services between Cologne/Bonn and Berlin Brandenburg International, ch-aviation schedule analysis has revealed.
The low-cost carrier will operate the route 12x weekly using a mix of A319-100s and A320-200s.
easyJet entered Germany on a large scale in the wake of the bankruptcy of Air Berlin (1991), when it acquired the defunct carrier's slots at Berlin Tegel, together with twenty-five A320 Family aircraft leases for approximately EUR40 million (USD46.5 million at that time). It launched domestic and international operations out of Berlin Tegel in January 2018 while also maintaining its legacy international base at Berlin Schönefeld. However, the LCC announced that it would discontinue all of its domestic German flights in mid-2020, amidst the COVID-induced drop in demand. It also said at that time that it would halve the number of aircraft based out of Berlin.
As such, the restarted route to Cologne will be easyJet's first domestic service operated out of Berlin Brandenburg Int'l, considering that the airline suspended German domestic operations before the opening of the new airport.
Despite the downsizing of its Berlin operations, easyJet, with its Austrian and Swiss units, is seventh in terms of weekly scheduled market share out of the country with 2.3%. Excluding domestic flights, easyJet's share is 2.9%. In turn, the LCC group's market share in Berlin is 17.3%, second only to Ryanair, the ch-aviation capacities module shows.
The German domestic market is currently dominated by Lufthansa and Eurowings, which have a 98.1% market share by weekly scheduled capacity. Other carriers with minor presences in the passenger market are DAT (Denmark), Lübeck Air, FLN - Die Inselflieger, AIS Airlines (Netherlands), and Rhein-Neckar Air.
