Lufthansa said it was adding 61 connections in its summer timetable including new destinations such as Shenyang and Qingdao in China, where demand for air travel is growing rapidly.
"Close to 16 million people live in the catchment area of Shenyang and Qingdao, equivalent to the population of the 20 biggest German cities," Jens Bischof, sales chief at Lufthansa's passenger airline business, told journalists on Thursday.
The region around Shenyang, about 700 km from the capital Beijing, is rife with automobile and aircraft manufacturers as well as chemical companies and IT firms that drive economic growth there, Lufthansa said.
Qingdao, meanwhile, is home to China's third-largest port, making it a hub for the oil-refining industry and goods traffic, and also boasts beach resorts.
Lufthansa is also taking up routes from Germany to Knock in Ireland, France's Montpellier, Odessa in Ukraine and Pula in Croatia in the summer schedule that comes into effect on March 25 and ends October 27.
The move comes after Lufthansa halted services to Guangzhou in China, India's Kolkata and Hyderabad, Klagenfurt in Austria, Calgary in Canada and Bursa in Turkey because of the routes' lagging profitability.
Bischof also said Lufthansa expects business class bookings to remain stable this year.
"We know that the euro crisis and factors of economic instability have arrived in the real economy. But overall the current booking figures show that demand for business travel is relatively stable," Bischof told journalists at ITB Berlin travel fair.
Lufthansa on Wednesday said it made a net loss of EUR€13 million (USD$17.1 million) in 2011, after taking a larger-than-expected charge on the sale of its bmi unit, and would pay a dividend of 0.25 euros per share.
