Lufthansa pivots to U.K. to profit from faster vaccine progress

Deutsche Lufthansa AG is seeking to profit from the U.K.’s plans to exit lockdown, with its Eurowings subsidiary to offer flights from the U.K. to Mallorca for the first time as Germany’s coronavirus vaccine rollout sputters.

Eurowings will initially fly vacationers from Birmingham and Manchester to the Spanish island and back twice a week starting at the end of May, the airline said. The flights mark the first time the carrier has flown from the U.K. to its base on Mallorca. Further expansion will be examined in the next few weeks, Eurowings said.

Although the U.K. has Europe’s highest Covid death toll of more than 120,000, the country looks set to exit lockdown sooner than Germany, Lufthansa’s home country, due to a rapid rollout of vaccinations. Britain has administered around 33 vaccines per 100 people, compared with just 8 per 100 for Germany, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.

“Travel sadness in Germany, holiday fever in Great Britain,” the company said in a statement Friday, adding it was reacting to “skyrocketing demand” for flights to Mallorca. Eurowings said U.K. tourism bookings to southern European destinations rose 600% in the week when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to end lockdown.