Condor

Is Condor safe?

Yes. Condor has not had a fatal accident since 1988 and has not written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft in the 38 years since. It flies under German oversight within the EU's EASA system, and since November 2025 its fleet is all Airbus. We score it 85, a few points below Lufthansa and Eurowings, Germany's other big carriers.

The points it loses are recent. Since 2018 investigators have looked at a handful of Condor flights on holiday routes, and two of the findings were about Condor's own crews and maintenance rather than bad luck.

Which Condor is this?

This page covers Condor Flugdienst GmbH, the Frankfurt-based leisure airline with the IATA code DE. It is one operating certificate, with all its aircraft on the German register. Other airlines called Condor in the Aviation Safety Network files, such as Syndicato Condor in 1930s Brazil or Aerocondor in Colombia, have nothing to do with it.

Condor's crash history

On 2 January 1988 a Condor Boeing 737-200 was approaching Izmir at night with the co-pilot flying. After passing the beacon, the crew switched to the ILS too early to check their position in the procedure turn, ended up outside the localizer's coverage and followed a false signal on the wrong side. They descended to the outer-marker altitude and hit Dümentepe hill about 10 nm from the airport. All 16 people on board died. The investigation blamed the wrong use of navigation aids and poor crew coordination.

The closest call since came in June 1992. A 767 leaving Porlamar in Venezuela at night turned towards the first waypoint instead of holding runway heading, after a clearance neither side handled well. The ground proximity warning sounded and the first officer pulled up gently; the left wing still clipped an uncharted 300-foot tower on a mountain. The jet returned with a hole in the wing and a ruptured fuel tank. Nobody was hurt.

Serious incidents since 2018

• Kavala, August 2018. An A320 climbing out got a collision alert with a helicopter, first to climb and then to descend, and the descent triggered a terrain warning. Greece's investigators blamed an unsatisfactory response to the collision-avoidance commands, plus missing traffic information and non-standard phraseology from air traffic control.
• Heraklion and Kavala, July 2021. After a rejected take-off at Heraklion, in which the nose came up and slammed down, mechanics there changed the main wheels and released the A320 without knowing about the hard nose-gear impact. The next day at Kavala the crew could not raise the landing gear, lost the autopilot and flew back by hand. Germany's BFU found the aircraft had been sent back into service unairworthy, with a badly damaged nose-gear shock absorber.
• Seychelles, March 2023. An A330-900 at 39,000 feet turned too late around a building storm cloud. Six passengers were badly hurt and 16 others slightly. The BFU noted the weather radar mode did not show turbulence and that Condor's emergency training had gaps in using onboard systems.
• Kalamata, May 2026. An A321 landed hard and stayed on the ground for almost two days for checks. No investigation finding has been published.

Older, but worth knowing: in December 2013 an A320 descending into Tenerife South on a non-precision approach got a terrain warning 6 nm out at about 435 feet. Spain's investigators found the crew had used the wrong distance reference because no one told them the runway's DME was off.

How old is Condor's fleet?

Much younger than two years ago. Until late 2025 Condor still flew Boeing 757-300s on holiday routes; the last ones left on 5 November 2025.

The fleet is now 51 Airbus jets: 18 A330-900neos on long-haul routes, 4 A320neos and 6 A321neos, plus 10 older A320s and 13 older A321s that Condor plans to replace by 2029. More neos are on order. Condor does not publish an average age.

Flying Condor on holiday routes

Condor's network is mostly leisure: Greek islands, the Canaries, Egypt, East Africa, Mauritius and the Seychelles, the Caribbean and North America. Some small airports, such as Kavala, have no radar coverage at low level, and summer brings crowded aprons, as when an Air Europa 737 taxiing at Palma in 2023 clipped a waiting Condor 757's tail; Spanish investigators blamed the Air Europa crew.

• Belt up on long-haul flights to the Indian Ocean. The 2023 injuries hit passengers who were not wearing seat belts while the aircraft crossed a tropical storm area.
• Expect delays after technical events at small airports. Condor often flies in a replacement aircraft, which can take a day.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) and oversight (90) are strong: one fatal accident, in 1988, and full EASA oversight. The fleet (80) has improved sharply with the A330-900s and the end of the 757. Incidents (74) cost the most, because the 2021 Kavala event and the 2023 turbulence injuries both pointed at Condor's own maintenance and training. Environment scores 80. Overall 85.