LGW and WDL Aviation merged into “German Airways”

Three days ago, the Logistics group Zeitfracht celebrated the day of German unity with a very special announcement.

About 30 years ago, East and West Germany were reunited. A similar event is happening in the Zeitfracht Group: its two airlines, Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter mbH (LGW) and WDL Aviation will operate under the German Airways brand but they will keep separate Air Operator Certificates (AOC). 

WDL Aviation focusses on short- and medium-term wet-leases using its fleet of three BAe 146-200s, two BAe146-300s and three E190s, while LGW operates seventeen Dash 8-400s under a long-term partnership with Eurowings.

Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter mbH, commonly abbreviated LGW, is a German regional airline headquartered in Dortmund.

Originally LGW was an independent provider of scheduled and chartered low-volume passenger flights. After years of cooperation with Air Berlin, it eventually became a subsidiary of Air Berlin in 2017. After the collapse of Air Berlin, it was purchased by Lufthansa in October 2017 and became a unit of the group’s low-cost carrier Eurowings. Zeitfracht Group completed the purchase of LGW from Lufthansa on 1 April 2019.

WDL Aviation GmbH & Co. KG is a German charter and wet-lease aircraft operator, headquartered at Cologne Bonn Airport, and now part of the Zeitfracht Group. Initially named WDL Flugdienst, the company was set up in 1974 as a subsidiary of Westdeutsche Luftwerbung GmbH, an aerial advertising provider founded in 1955.

Sources: Zeitfracht LinkedIn account and Wikipedia