On Friday afternoon, 218 passengers flew with Lufthansa from Munich to Seattle for the first time. The airline is now offering three weekly flights from Munich to the US metropolis on the Pacific using the most sustainable long-haul aircraft, an Airbus A350. This makes Seattle its fifth destination on North America’s West Coast after San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver.

Boasting a wide range of green spaces in the urban area and extensive forests, Seattle has been voted the “most livable city” in the US on multiple occasions. With its coastal location and numerous national parks, including the almost 4,400-meter-high Mount Rainier volcano, it offers travelers a great deal of variety. Thanks to its proximity to Canada, the port, and global corporations such as Amazon and Microsoft, the city with 750,000 inhabitants is the economic, scientific and cultural center of the Pacific Northwest region.

Now serving a total of 16 destinations, Munich Airport has set a new record for connections to North America. New York is the highest-volume destination with up to four flights a day. The US is the most important long-haul market for Munich Airport, with passenger numbers having exceeded 2019 levels since 2023. A record was also set last year with 78 thousand metric tons of air freight handled. And the boom continues: In May 2024, passenger volumes to the US were already up 20 percent compared with the same month last year.