New nonstop service from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to Germany begins Tuesday as Lufthansa expands into the market.
A water cannon salute greeting the arrival of the airline’s first flight from Frankfurt will take place about 1:15 p.m. with musical performances, a ribbon cutting and remarks from Lufthansa and Metropolitan Airports Commission dignitaries to follow.
Festivities at Gate G13 will also include German-inspired treats and mementos for passengers boarding the first outbound flight, scheduled to depart at 3:05 p.m.
Flights between the Twin Cities and Frankfurt will operate five times a week year-round. With Lufthansa’s arrival, the MSP Airport is now served by 19 carriers.
“The launch of this route serves as a main bedrock of our summer expansion plan in the United States, the most important market outside of the group’s home markets, and we could not be happier to add more opportunities and capacity into and out of the U.S.,” said Dirk Janzen, the airline’s vice president of passenger sales for the Americas.
The new service marks the airport’s first new transatlantic route in four years and comes as MSP is bracing for a surge of passengers heading to Europe this summer.
Already this year, Aer Lingus resumed service from the Twin Cities to Dublin, and Delta launched a new route to the capital of Ireland.
Along with Germany’s national airline, Lufthansa, Condor Air flies seasonally from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Frankfurt. Delta, Air France, KLM and Icelandair provide direct flights to other European destinations including London, Amsterdam, Paris and Iceland.
