Lufthansa Now Offers Service to Baghdad

It now appears that Lufthansa has become the first major European carrier in 20 years to launch a service to Baghdad. The German carrier said it was planning to fly to the Iraqi capital and Erbil in the north from Frankfurt and Munich come this summer. The carrier said that these flights are going to be offered due to high demand.

A spokesman at Lufthansa, Boris Ogursky, said that the demand goes in both directions. He went on to confirm the start date as mid 2010, but added that it’s too early to give an expect date for the flights. Lufthansa had first started flying to Baghdad back in 1956, but halted all of its operations in 1990 because of the Gulf War when the United States-led forces reversed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has struggled to exploit its vast crude oil reserves due to civil war. However, now that security is improving, the Iraqi government how hopes to triple oil output from 2.4 million barrels a day to 7 million over the next six years. It has also awarded oil exploitation rights to a string of foreign companies in recent months.

Lufthansa’s application for the routes is being considered under terms of an initial aviation agreement reached with Iraq’s government in October. A German Transport Ministry spokesman said that both sides have stressed that they wish to resume traditionally friendly air traffic relations between the two countries. Meanwhile, German low cost carrier Air Berlin has published an online flight schedule to both Erbil and Sulimaniyah from four German cities in anticipation of starting services as early as next month.