Return of Lufthansa

German travelers hurrying through Frankfurt's bustling Rhein-Main airport stopped in surprise last week as the loudspeaker boomed: "Lufthansa flight from Hamburg to Munich has just arrived." Then most of them rushed to the big waiting-room window and looked out onto the field. There a light-blue Lufthansa Convair, with the familiar eagle painted on its nose, taxied in, completing the first scheduled test run for the line. Germany had her wings back.

It was just ten years ago that a Junkers 52 left Berlin and headed for Madrid on the last Lufthansa flight. For the next decade, with airlines barred by the Allies, all Germans had left were memories of a once-great organization. On the eve of World War II, Lufthansa (founded in 1926) had 125 planes, flew more than a quarter-million passengers 73 million miles a year. It ranked as the world's second airline in passenger miles flown (first: Pan American). It pioneered the Europe-South America run in 1934; two years later it was one of the first to test-fly the North Atlantic.

Eagle into Sparrow. The new Lufthansa, with 90% of its backing from the government, 10% from private investors, is just a sparrow compared to its old, eagle-size self. Since no plane factories are permitted in Germany, Lufthansa ordered its planes from the U.S.; four Convairs have already arrived and eight Constellations are due, starting later this month. Lufthansa's 70 pilots, recruited from among company veterans, had to retrain and catch up with ten missing years of flight development in Britain, the U.S., and Holland; the peace treaty prohibits flight training in Germany. Recently Lufthansa hired ten pilots from British European Airways as instructors. Mostly, they sat by in the Convair cockpits while the retread German pilots did the test flying.

Prospects for Lufthansa are not bright. The competition is fierce; virtually every West European nation has its own airline, and even the-two largest and best-equipped outfits operating in Germany (Air France and BEA) are currently losing money.

Hardheaded German businessmen estimate that by 1960 the airline will have piled up an 85 million Deutsche Mark ($20.2 million) deficit and will still be losing money at the rate of 10 million DM ($2,400,000) yearly.

Objection from France. But Lufthansa is not discouraged. Last year 26 international airlines crisscrossed Germany for a gross of 225 million DM ($53.6 million). In December alone, they carried 114,000 passengers (25% German). Lufthansa has already set up shop in Europe's largest, most modern hangar, in Hamburg, hired 700 employees, including a covey of trim stewardesses. Its bosses, moreover, are no novices in the harshly competitive airline business, but old hands. Hans M. Bongers, Lufthansa's chief, ran the line's prewar business department; Technical Director Gerhard Hoeltje is another veteran.

Last week there was the danger that France might delay the line's inauguration, arguing that it could not let Germans fly over the country prior to restoration of German sovereignty. But Lufthansa, with the U.S. and British authorities already on its side, counted on winning over the French as well. On April 1, said Lufthansa confidently, it would begin scheduled commercial flights inside West Germany, soon to be followed by regular flights to continental points, Britain and New York. Not long after, Lufthansa expects to be making four flights weekly to New York, two to Buenos Aires, three to Teheran. Predicted Lufthansa: by 1956 it would be flying to New York ten times a week and opening new routes to the Orient.

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