Eurowings Receives Award In Athens / The First Time In History: "Gold Award" Of The European Regions Airline Association (ERA) Is Handed Over To German Airline

- Cross-reference: photo is available at:http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=290615&action=bigpic&att=1094 5 Athens, Greece / Dortmund, Germany (PROTEXT/ots) - Europe'shighest distinction for regional air carriers, the "Gold Award"of the European Regions Airline Association (ERA), went this yearto Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG. This is the first time a Germanairline is honored with the coveted award. Eurowings receivedthis prestigious honor for its excellent performance in settingup and expanding its fleet, its financial stability, its economicsuccess and the outstanding quality of its route network. On Thursday evening, during the Annual General Assembly of theERA in Athens, Friedrich-Wilhelm Weitholz, Chairman of the Boardat Eurowings, accepted the "Airline of the Year 2001/02" Goldaward on behalf of his entire team. "The whole Eurowings team hasmerited this award," he said, "and every single member of ourstaff has contributed to this success. Last year, we alreadyreceived the "Silver Award," but now we regard this year's goldaward as the crowning achievement. It has to be stressed thatthese have been the most successful twelve months in ourcompany's history. This award underlines once again that ourpolicy of opening up new routes and services to link the variousEuropean regions to the continent's business hubs is the rightone." Furthermore, the Eurowings Chairman said: "We are linkingEurope together. Our mission is to connect regions to thecontinent's large captials nonstop. We also regard this award asa vindication of the strategy behind our fleet. Eurowings haslong banked on a strategic mixture of economical andenvironmentally friendly turboprops and state-of-the-art regionaljets. This has allowed us to react extremely flexible to recentdevelopments on the various markets we are present in." "While handing over this award to the Eurowings LuftverkehrsAG, the jury highlighted the company's solid and stablemanagement," said Mike Ambrose, Director General of ERA. Added tothis, the impressive expansion in the airline's fleet and networkof services was also an important criteria for the jury. Eventhough Eurowings is now partner of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, thecompany managed to maintain its own unique profile within thispartnership and the world's leading airline alliance, the StarAlliance. All this was also a persuasive argument for honoringthe German airline in this manner. The ERA jury had nine members. Under the leadership ofChairman Dr. Ton Leyer, the jury members, all of them leadinginternational aviation journalists, had a total of 18applications to judge from. ERA is the representativeorganization of the regional European air transport industry.Its members currently include 80 airlines, 41 airports and morethan 130 other companies from the aerospace industry. With a daily traffic volume of up to 330 flights to 58destinations in 19 countries, Eurowings is one of Europe'slargest regional air carriers. In fiscal 2000, the airlinecarried around 3.2 million passengers and made record turnover ofmore than 406 million with operative results of 7.8 million.Since January 1, 2001, Eurowings can also count DeutscheLufthansa AG among its shareholders. Lufthansa, one of Europe'sleading airlines, presently holds a 24.9% stake in the EurowingsLuftverkehrs AG, however with an option to increase this stake to49%. Eurowings currently has a fleet of 47 aircraft at itsdisposal. With an average age of around six years, it is one ofthe youngest fleets in the airline industry and is constantlybeing updated. The backbone of the fleet is its 44-seat ATR 42turboprops and its 68-seat ATR 72s, of which Eurowings presentlyoperates a total of 27. The jets in the fleet are the 98-seat BAe146, of which Eurowings operates ten, and the 142-seat AirbusA319, of which five are presently in service. Of the fifteen 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 200 regional jets on order and due fordelivery by the end of 2003, five are already in service onEurowings routes. ots Original Text Service: EurowingsLuftverkehrs AG Internet: http://www.presseportal.de For furtherpress information: Dr. Martin Mönnighoff Eurowings LuftverkehrsAG Mobil: ++ 49 (0)170 - 63 26 469 Tel.: ++ 49 (0)231 - 92 45 -7302 www.eurowings.de Thomas Wilde / Matthias Burkard w&p Wilde& Partner Mobil: ++ 49 (0)172 - 89 03 738 Tel.: ++ 49 (0)89 - 1791 90 - 0 www.wilde.de

Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug"PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to bepublished under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial serviceproviding distribution of press releases from clients, who areidentified in the text of Protext reports and who bear fullresponsibility for their contents.

PROTEXT