Lufthansa launches surprising new route between New York Newark and Malta

Over the weekend, Lufthansa loaded a new service between New York Newark and Malta into its schedule for this summer. The Airbus A350-900 flight will operate with the following schedule:

LH489 EWR 20:45 - 11:25(+1) MLA A359
LH488 MLA 15:15 - 19:00     EWR A359

The route will be operating in a strange way:

• It will be operating irregularly up to 3 times weekly between 30 June and 15 October
• It will consistently be operating in place of the Newark to Munich route, which is daily, except for the days where the Newark to Malta route operates
• There’s no consistency to the frequencies, days of the week, etc.

Furthermore, availability is “zeroed out,” meaning the public can’t book this flight.

People around the world were wondering what this unusual flight was about. The answer is simple: Lufthansa’s LH488/489 flights are exclusively a charter service for passengers taking Viking cruises. Both the Viking Sea and Viking Venus will be based out of Malta this summer, and these ships each have the capacity for 930 passengers.

If you look at the schedule for Viking cruises out of Malta this summer, the dates line up exactly with Lufthansa’s scheduled flights to/from Malta.

Source: One mile at the time