Cirrus Airlines Luftfahrtgesellschaft mbH was a German regional airline with its head office in

Hallbergmoos Hallbergmoos is a municipality in the district of Freising in Bavaria in Germany. The Isar River flows west of the town. Economy Augsburg Airways, a regional airline, was headquartered in Hallbergmoos until it ceased to exist. The headquarters o ...

and its maintenance facilities at

Saarbrücken Airport Saarbrücken Airport , or ''Flughafen Saarbrücken'' or ''Ensheim Airport'' in German, is a minor international airport in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It features flights to major cities throughout Germany as well a ...

. It operated both charter and scheduled flights, the latter on behalf of

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

Swiss International Air Lines Swiss International Air Lines AG, colloquially known as SWISS, is the flag carrier of Switzerland, operating scheduled services in Europe and to North America, South America, Africa and Asia. Zurich Airport serves as its sole hub and Geneva ...

and

Air Moldova Air Moldova is the national airline of Moldova headquartered in Chișinău. It mainly operates scheduled and charter services to destinations within Europe from its base at Chișinău International Airport. History The roots of Moldavian civil ...

. Its main bases and hubs were

and

Mannheim City Airport Mannheim City Airport (''City-Airport Mannheim'' in German, formerly Mannheim-Neuostheim/Neuhermsheim) is a minor regional airport serving the German city of Mannheim. It is mainly used for general aviation. Location The airport is located 3.5 ...

. The company slogan was ''connecting business.''

History

Cirrus Airlines was founded in February 1995 as ''Cirrus Luftfahrtgesellschaft mbH'' and operated an executive charter business. In March 1998, Cirrus Airlines received its licence to operate scheduled passenger services between Saarbrücken Airport and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. In August 1999, Cirrus Airlines took over Cosmos Air, its

Dornier 328 The Dornier 328 is a turboprop-powered commuter airliner. Initially produced by Dornier Luftfahrt GmbH, the firm was acquired in 1996 by Fairchild Aircraft. The resulting firm, named Fairchild-Dornier, manufactured the 328 family in Oberpfaffen ...

and the route between

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...

and

Berlin Tempelhof Berlin Tempelhof Airport (german: Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof) was one of the first airports in Berlin, Germany. Situated in the south-central Berlin borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg, the airport ceased operating in 2008 amid controversy, leav ...

and Baden Air in 2000. In February 2000, upon the 5th anniversary of Cirrus Airlines, it established a cooperative partnership with German-owned Lufthansa and became a

Team Lufthansa Team Lufthansa was an alliance of regional airlines mainly in Germany, who flew niche routes on behalf of Lufthansa. Overview Team Lufthansa was founded in 1996 by Lufthansa in the wake of the deregulation of the airline market as new competi ...

franchise member. In April that year, Cirrus received licences to operate regularly scheduled service between

and Hamburg Airport and between Berlin and

Sylt Sylt (; da, Sild; Sylt North Frisian, Söl'ring North Frisian: ) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian ...

. Cirrus steadily expanded its business, with scheduled services operating mainly from

and

to domestic destinations. The following years the airline started to decentralize its operations, also flying low-density point-to-point routes and adding

Embraer Embraer S.A. () is a Brazilian multinational aerospace manufacturer that produces commercial, military, executive and agricultural aircraft, and provides aeronautical services. It was founded in 1969 in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, where i ...

-Jets to its

Turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. Fuel ...

-Fleet. In 2004 Cirrus Airlines took over

Augsburg Airways Augsburg Airways was a regional airline from Germany. A member of Team Lufthansa and its successor Lufthansa Regional, it operated feeder services at Munich Airport on behalf of Lufthansa. History Early years The company was founded in 19 ...

, a

Lufthansa Regional Lufthansa Regional is an operational entity for regional and feeder flights performed by two regional airlines owned by Lufthansa within its route network.

member. The headquarters were consequently moved to

, near

Munich Airport Munich International Airport- Franz Josef Strauß (german: link=no, Flughafen München) is an international airport serving Munich and Upper Bavaria. It is the second-busiest airport in Germany in terms of passenger traffic after Frankfurt A ...

. ''Cirrus Technik'' and ''Cirrus Flight Training'' remained at

. The company introduced a modified

corporate identity A corporate identity or corporate image is the manner in which a corporation, firm or business enterprise presents itself to the public (such as customers and investors as well as employees). The corporate identity is typically visualized by ...

in January 2008. Cirrus Airlines was a company within ''Aviation Investment Corp.'' along with ''Cirrus Maintenance'' and ''Cirrus Service''. On 20 January 2012, the airline ceased operations and flew all aircraft back to Saarbrücken. This left some airports temporarily without scheduled service, like Hof Airport and

Destinations

Dornier Do-328-110, Cirrus Airlines JP6899215

Cirrus Airlines served the following destinations: *

Hamburg Airport Hamburg Airport , known in German as ''Flughafen Hamburg'', is a major international airport in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Since November 2016 the airport has been christened after the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. ...

Zürich Airport Zürich Airport (), french: Aéroport de Zurich, it, Aeroporto di Zurigo, rm, Eroport da Turitg is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zürich, Switzerland's larg ...

* Hof Airport *

Ohrid Ohrid ( mk, Охрид ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the List of cities in North Macedonia, eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording ...

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

* Chișinău Airport *

Frankfurt Airport Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

Kiel Airport Kiel Airport (german: Flughafen Kiel, ) is a small regional airport in Kiel, Germany. It is located in the borough of Holtenau, north of the city centre. It is registered as a ''public airfield'' (german: Verkehrslandeplatz). As of 2006, it se ...

Berlin-Tempelhof Tempelhof () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. The former airport and surroundings are now a park called ...

Berlin-Tegel Airport Berlin Tegel "Otto Lilienthal" Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Berlin-Tegel „Otto Lilienthal“) was the primary international airport of Berlin, the federal capital of Germany. The airport was named after aviation pioneer Otto Lilientha ...

Dresden Airport Dresden Airport is the international airport of Dresden, the state capital of Saxony, Germany. It is located in Klotzsche, a district of Dresden north of the city centre. It was formerly also known in German as ''Flughafen Dresden-Klotzsche''. ...

* Olbia Airport *

Heringsdorf Airport Heringsdorf Airport (german: Flughafen Heringsdorf) is a regional airport located near Garz on the island of Usedom in Germany. It used to be an East German airbase and today features summer leisure routes from cities in Germany and Switzerland ...

* Sylt Airport *

Erfurt Airport Erfurt () is the capital (political), capital and largest city in the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera (river), Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of ...

* London City * Rostock Airport *

Stuttgart Airport Stuttgart Airport (German: ''Flughafen Stuttgart'', formerly ''Flughafen Stuttgart-Echterdingen'') is the international airport of Stuttgart, the capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is christened in honor of Stuttgart's forme ...

Bern german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

Vienna Airport Vienna International Airport (german: Flughafen Wien-Schwechat; ) is the international airport of Vienna, the capital of Austria, located in Schwechat, southeast of central Vienna and west of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It is the ...

Brno Airport Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

Fleet

The airline operated: * 1

Airbus A310 The Airbus A310 is a wide-body aircraft, designed and manufactured by Airbus Industrie, then a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers. Airbus had identified a demand for an aircraft smaller than the A300, the first twin-jet wide-bod ...

''D-AHLC'' * 2

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

-500/800 ''D-ACIN'', ''D-ALIG'' * 8

De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8 The De Havilland Canada DHC-8, commonly known as the Dash 8, is a series of turboprop-powered regional airliners, introduced by de Havilland Canada (DHC) in 1984. DHC was later bought by Boeing in 1988, then by Bombardier Aerospace, Bombard ...

* 8

Embraer ERJ-145 The Embraer ERJ family (for Embraer Regional Jet, model names EMB-135, EMB-140 and EMB-145) are regional jets designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer. The family includes the ERJ135 (37 passengers), ERJ140 (44 passenger ...

*19

-Turboprop and -Jet (1 donated to École Nationale D'Aérotechnique) * 3

Embraer ERJ-170 The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast narrow-body short- to medium-range twin-engine jet airliners designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-Jet was designed as a complement to the preceding ...

* 1

Beechcraft Super King Air 200 The Beechcraft Super King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by Beechcraft. The Model 200 and Model 300 series were originally marketed as the "Super King Air" family; the "Super" designation was dropped in 1996. ...

Incidents and accidents

* June 28, 2006: A Cirrus Airlines

Embraer 145 The Embraer ERJ family (for Embraer Regional Jet, model names EMB-135, EMB-140 and EMB-145) are regional jets designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer. The family includes the ERJ135 (37 passengers), ERJ140 (44 passenger ...

flying on behalf of

overshoots the runways in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. None of the 49 occupants on board are hurt. * March 19, 2008: Flight 1567 from Berlin-Tempelhof overshoots runway 27 of the

and comes to rest on a wall close to a highway. Five of the 27 people on board is hurt, and the aircraft, a

(D-CTOB), is severely damaged.

References

External links

{{Airlines of Germany Defunct airlines of Germany Airlines established in 1995 Airlines disestablished in 2012 Saarbrücken Companies based in Saarland German companies disestablished in 2012 German companies established in 1995