Lufthansa City Airlines

Is Lufthansa City Airlines safe?

Yes. Lufthansa City Airlines has flown since 26 June 2024 without an accident, it flies mostly new Airbus A320neos, and it is overseen by Germany's LBA under the same EASA rules as its parent. We score it 87, level with Lufthansa itself. The catch is time: two years of flying with a small fleet says less than the decades behind older airlines, so the accident score stays below the top band until the record grows.

Most passengers never book it by name. It flies Lufthansa's short-haul routes from Munich and, since February 2026, from Frankfurt, under its own VL flight numbers and sold through Lufthansa. The aircraft carry Lufthansa colours. The certificate, crews and record are City Airlines' own, so its events count on this page and not on the Lufthansa one.

What is Lufthansa City Airlines?

Lufthansa founded City Airlines in 2022 and gave it the job of flying feeder routes into its two German hubs at lower cost. The first flight, VL2508 from Munich to Birmingham on an A320neo, left on 26 June 2024. By the end of 2025 it was flying 15 aircraft out of Munich, and it served 27 destinations that year. On 9 February 2026 it opened its Frankfurt base with VL946 to Manchester, and Lufthansa planned to station seven A320neos there by autumn 2026. The airline had about 450 staff in early 2026 and planned to hire about 80 more pilots and 200 more cabin crew.

City Airlines replaces Lufthansa CityLine, the group's older regional airline, which flew 90-seat Bombardier CRJ900s under the code CL. Lufthansa had planned to wind CityLine down over the next few years, but stopped its flights at two days' notice on 18 April 2026, citing fuel costs and strikes. If you see "operated by Lufthansa CityLine" on an old booking, that airline no longer flies.

How new is the fleet?

Newer than almost any other group airline. Six of the 11 A320neos it flew at the end of 2025 were delivered new that year, and the rest joined since 2024. The A320neo is the current generation of Airbus's single-aisle family, with the same fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary controls and cockpit as the A320s many pilots move from.

The exceptions are four A319s, which flew for other Lufthansa Group airlines first. They are older-generation aircraft, and they are the part of the fleet to watch. By the end of 2026 Lufthansa plans 20 A320neos, the same four A319s and the airline's first Airbus A220, from an order of 40 A220-300s.

What incidents has it had?

Very few, and nothing serious that we could find. On 18 June 2026 an A319 flying VL2430 from Munich to Gothenburg with 133 people on board diverted to Frankfurt after the crew noticed an odour, at times with a little local smoke. It landed safely and stopped on the runway for a check by the fire service, and the passengers left normally.

We found no investigation by Germany's BFU into a City Airlines flight, no fine and no grounding. With only about two years of flying, that absence tells us less than it would for an older airline, which is why the incidents score is 80 and not higher.

Flying Lufthansa City Airlines: what to check

• Look for VL in the flight number. Lufthansa sells these flights on its own site, but the flight number starts with VL and the booking says "operated by Lufthansa City Airlines".
• Expect an A320neo on most routes. Your seat map shows the type. The A319 is smaller and older; both are safe.
• Plan winter connections with time to spare. Snow and fog at Munich and Frankfurt cause de-icing delays and missed connections more often than anything on the aircraft itself.
• Ignore old CityLine warnings. Delays and strikes reported for Lufthansa CityLine in 2025 and 2026 belong to a different airline that stopped flying in April 2026.

How we scored it

Oversight (90) and the young A320neo fleet (86) are the strongest factors. The clean accident record scores 88, not higher, because two years is short, and incidents score 80 for the same reason. The hub network scores 88. Overall 87.