Lufthansa

Deutsche Lufthansa AG (FWB: LHA, OTCQX: DLAKY), commonly simply known as Lufthansa and sometimes internationally as Lufthansa German Airlines) is the largest airline in Europe, both in terms of overall passengers carried and fleet size, and flag carrier of Germany.

Having been a state-owned enterprise until 1994, the majority of Lufthansa's shares are nowadays held by private investors (88.52%), as well as MGL Gesellschaft für Luftverkehrswerte (10.05%), Deutsche Postbank (1.03%), and Deutsche Bank (0.4%). The name of the company is derived from Luft (the German word for "air"), and Hansa (a Latin term referring to the Hanseatic League).

The airline operates services to 18 domestic destinations and 197 international destinations in 78 countries across Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe, using a fleet of more than 280 aircraft.

Together with its partners, Lufthansa serves around 500 destinations. With over 620 aircraft, it has one of the largest passenger airline fleets in the world when combined with its subsidiaries.

Lufthansa's registered office and corporate headquarters are in Cologne. The main operations base, called Lufthansa Aviation Center (LAC), is located at Lufthansa's primary traffic hub at Frankfurt Airport.

The majority of Lufthansa's pilots, ground staff, and flight attendants are based in Frankfurt.

Lufthansa is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance, formed in 1997. In 2012, Lufthansa Group carried over 103 million passengers.