Deutsche Lufthansa AG/Lufthansa German Airlines, commonly shortened toLufthansa, serves as the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it stands as the second-largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried, after the ultra low-cost carrier Ryanair, largest in Europe and fourth largest in the world by revenue. Lufthansa is also one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, which is the world's largest airline alliance, formed in 1997.
Besides its own services, and owning subsidiary passenger airlines Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Brussels Airlines, discover airlines and Eurowings (referred to in English by Lufthansa as its Passenger Airline Group), Deutsche Lufthansa AG owns several aviation-related companies, such as Lufthansa Technik and LSG Sky Chefs, as part of the Lufthansa Group. In total, the group has over 700 aircraft, making it one of the largest airline fleets in the world.
Lufthansa's registered office and corporate headquarters are in Cologne. The main operations base, called Lufthansa Aviation Center, is at Lufthansa's primary hub at Frankfurt Airport, and its secondary hub is at Munich Airport where a secondary Flight Operations Centre is maintained.
The company was founded as Luftag in 1953 by staff of the former Deutsche Luft Hansa that had been politically connected to the government of Nazi Germany and dissolved after World War II. Luftag continued the traditional branding of the German flag carrier by acquiring the Luft Hansa name and logo.
