Tampa Announced as New Lufthansa Lower-Cost Unit’s First Destination

Tampa in Florida is the first destination which Lufthansa has officially announced will be served by its new lower-cost, long-haul operating unit internally code-named ‘Jump’.

Jump will begin service between Frankfurt and Tampa on September 25, 2015, using Airbus A340-300 widebodies from the Lufthansa mainline fleet. Each Jump flight will operate under full Lufthansa branding and using a Lufthansa flight number.

An Airbus A340-300 operated by Lufthansa on transatlantic and other long-haul routes

Each of the 14 A340-300s that Jump will initially operate will have its cabin interior reconfigured to provide a higher proportion of economy-class seating in order to serve destinations which are primarily leisure-oriented.

Lufthansa is reconfiguring each of these A340-300s with 298 passenger seats: 18 in Business Class, 19 in Lufthansa’s new Premium Economy Class and 261 in Economy Class.

After launching service between Frankfurt and Tampa on September 25, Lufthansa will operate five round-trips a week on the route during the remainder of its summer 2015 schedule. However, for its winter 2015-16 schedule, the carrier will operate four round-trips a week on the route.

Tampa will become Lufthansa’s third destination in Florida; the airline already serves Miami and Orlando.

According to Lufthansa, its thinking in launching service to Tampa is that the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area is a rapidly growing metropolitan region with nearly three million residents. Because the region sits on the Gulf of Mexico and boasts some of America’s best beaches, it is an attractive leisure destinations for sun-seeking German tourists.

Tampa is known as the birthplace of commercial aviation. The first commercial flight in history operated across Tampa Bay between St Petersburg and Tampa on 1 January 1, 1914.

Lufthansa’s schedule for its new Frankfurt-Tampa service will see flight LH482 leaving Frankfurt Airport (IATA code FRA) at 11:00 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from September 25 and landing at Tampa International Airport (TPA) at 3.50 p.m. local time after a flight scheduled for a 10 hour 50 minute block time.

In the other direction, flight LH483 will depart TPA at 5.20 p.m on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from September 25 and touch down at FRA at 8.45 a.m. the following morning, local time. The eastbound flight is scheduled to have a nine hour 25 minute block time.

The great-circle distance between Frankfurt and Tampa is 4,169 nautical miles (7,721 kilometers), according to Lufthansa.

In all three cabin classes Lufthansa is offering on the Frankfurt-Tampa route, each passenger will have access to an individual in-flight entertainment system, along with fast broadband Internet connectivity via the FlyNet Wi-Fi hotspot onboard.

Briefing a small group of reporters in New York on October 30, Karl Ulrich Garnadt, CEO of Lufthansa German Airlines, revealed that Tampa would probably be one of the new Jump unit’s early destinations.

However, Garnadt mentioned a number of other destinations Jump would also be likely to serve from Frankfurt or Munich and he didn’t indicate which destination would be announced first. Other destinations that Garnadt revealed Lufthansa was considering for the Jump operation were Cancun, Cape Town, Nairobi and Panama City in Central America.