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BERLIN, June 30 (Reuters) - Lufthansa's Eurowingslow-cost unit is weighing up flying from Munich, a hub forLufthansa-branded flights, an executive has told a Germanmagazine, as the overall group looks to defend its market shareagainst rival budget airlines.
"We're speaking about it internally. It's an option for2017," Karl Ulrich Garnadt, Lufthansa group board memberresponsible for Eurowings, was quoted as saying byWirtschaftsWoche.
Munich has traditionally been used by Lufthansa as a hub forlong-haul flights and serving business travel demand fromsouthern Germany.
Transavia, a unit of Air France-KLM, became thefirst low-cost carrier to set up a base in Munich this year,while easyJet already flies to the airport and Ryanair has also been looking at it, although the airport's bosshas said slots at peak times are hard to come by.
Eurowings says it doesn't see itself as competing againstthe Lufthansa brand, but instead providing flights for moreprice-sensitive customers who otherwise may not chose to fly atall.
"We see ourselves as a defence line for the Lufthansa group... We don't fly against Frankfurt and Munich but against thecompetition and we're trying to prevent the competition fromgetting bigger," Eurowings chief commercial officer OliverWagner told investors earlier this month. (Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
