Continental Airlines to offer daily nonstop flights between New York and Munich

Continental Airlines announced today that it will launch daily nonstop service between its New York hub at Newark Liberty International Airport and Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss International Airport, effective March 27, 2010.

“We are excited about launching service between New York and Munich, the largest German city not currently served by Continental and a hub for our new partner Lufthansa,” said Jim Compton, the airline’s executive vice president of marketing. “As well as extending Continental service to a new market in Germany, this hub-to-hub link will provide additional travel options and opportunities for our customers on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Flight CO106 will depart Newark Liberty daily at 5:25 pm and arrive in Munich at 7:50 am the next day. The return flight, CO107, will depart Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss International Airport daily at 9:20 am and arrive at Newark Liberty at 12:35 pm the same day. The schedule of the Continental service complements that of Lufthansa’s existing daily New York/Newark-Munich service, which departs Newark Liberty about three hours later and Munich about six hours later.

The Continental flights will be operated by Boeing 767-200ER aircraft, seating 25 passengers in BusinessFirst and 149 passengers in economy class. The new flight has been timed to provide convenient connections at Munich, where Star Alliance partner flights provide service to over 95 destinations in western Europe, eastern Europe, and the Middle East, as well as at New York/Newark with an extensive network of Continental flights to more than 100 destinations throughout the US, Canada, and Latin America.

Munich, the capital of Bavaria and the economic centre of southern Germany, is the country’s third largest city after Berlin and Hamburg, with a population of 1.3 million in the city and 5 million in the Munich Metropolitan Region. Famed for its historic and modern architecture and annual Oktoberfest beer celebration, Munich boasts a wealth of cultural attractions and institutions. Among the many world-renowned companies whose headquarters are in the city areSiemens AG (electronics), BMW (cars), MAN AG (trucks, engineering), Allianz (insurance), and Munich Re (re-insurance). Lufthansa operates a hub at Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss International Airport, which is the second-largest airport in Germany after Frankfurt.

Continental currently offers nonstop service between New York/Newark and Frankfurt, Berlin, and Hamburg. In addition, the airline launched nonstop service from Houston to Frankfurt on November 1, 2009. Munich will be the 30th destination in Continental’s trans-Atlantic route network.