When Lufthansa started offering executive jet flights through its subsidiary Lufthansa Private Jet in March 2005, the intention was to carry first-class passengers to and from its hub airports in Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich, providing a seamless connection with scheduled services. The airline was also offering point-to-point flights between some 1,000 European airports. In fact, that point-to-point service has grown much faster than long-range flight connections and today makes up for about 70 percent of all Lufthansa Private Jet flights.
From the beginning, all Lufthansa Private Jet flights were sold as Lufthansa services, but with aircraft wet-leased from fractional ownership provider NetJets Europe.
However, according to the German flag carrier, as point-to-point flights developed faster than feeder flights for scheduled links, Lufthansa and NetJets effectively found themselves competing and there was a strain on aircraft availability. This evolution prompted NetJets to pull out of the agreement late last year, and the airline had to find replacement aircraft. It found them at new partner DC Aviation, the former DaimlerChrysler flight department now part of the Cirrus Group.
