Zeitfracht Group

An Embraer with “KLM Cityhopper” on the fuselage, a German registration and the German flag on the tail: anyone who sees an aircraft like that in Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Cologne has a jet of the Zeitfracht Group in their lens – even though the name Zeitfracht appears nowhere. Behind the Cologne-based airline German Airways stands a logistics family business that entered aviation in 2017 and took over two long-established German operators right away. This page sorts out for you what belongs to the group, what of it is history and how to assign the aircraft correctly in the field.

From haulage company to corporate group

The story of Zeitfracht does not begin at the airport but on the road. In 1927, the butcher Walter Schröter founded a haulage company in Stendal in the Altmark. In 1951 the business was expropriated in East Germany, and his son Horst Walter Schröter fled to West Berlin and started anew there. In 1962 the freight forwarding business was given the name Zeitfracht.

In the following decades the forwarder grew through acquisitions. Zeitfracht held a stake in the parcel service DPD, which started in 1976, for decades, and the last shares were sold in 2016. After reunification, Horst Walter Schröter bought back the expropriated family business in Stendal in 1991. After Horst Walter Schröter’s death in 2013, the company passed to his grandniece Jasmin Schröter; the business is run by Wolfram Simon-Schröter together with Maren Wolters.

From the mid-2010s, the forwarder became a conglomerate. The group bought companies from very different industries in quick succession: book wholesale, machine tools, offshore ships, fashion, chocolate. Some of it was sold again after a short time. For spotters, one of these expansions counts above all: the step into aviation.

The holding now operates as Kolibri Beteiligung GmbH, formerly Zeitfracht GmbH & Co. KGaA. Since 2025 the logistics and media logistics division has additionally appeared under the Kolibri360 brand. In aviation circles people still talk about the Zeitfracht Group – and on the apron you meet only one name anyway: German Airways.

The aviation division at a glance

The group’s aviation never consisted of one large airline family like the Lufthansa Group or Air France-KLM. There were two mid-sized operators, both of which flew mainly on behalf of other airlines. The table shows who belonged when.

Both airlines share the business model: wet lease, also called ACMI. The operator provides aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, while the customer determines the flight number, ticket sales and usually the route as well. How this works in detail is explained in the article Wet lease explained. Why large airlines like to work with several brands and partners anyway is described in Multi-brand strategies at airlines.

WDL Aviation: the Cologne root

Today’s airline of the group is older than almost any other German airline. On July 29, 1955, Theodor Wüllenkemper founded the Westdeutsche Luftwerbung (WDL) at Essen-Mülheim Airport. After Lufthansa, it received an operating license as the second airline of the Federal Republic. At first, as the name says, it was about advertising flights; later this grew into flight operations for passengers and freight.

In 1974, WDL Flugdienst emerged as a spin-off, which later became WDL Aviation based at Cologne/Bonn Airport. For years, turboprops like the Fokker F27 Friendship shaped the picture, which WDL used as freighters, among other things. In 2011 the last Fokkers left the fleet. After that, WDL was a pure operator of the BAe 146 – a total of eight examples of the four-engine high-wing aircraft flew for the Cologne operator, some for passengers, some for freight.

With the BAe 146, WDL flew on wet lease for numerous airlines in Europe. If you sort through old photos, you often find the jets in a white base livery with stickers of the respective customer. The page on the Avro RJ85 introduces the type and its further development, and the entry on BAE Systems the manufacturer.

On October 1, 2017, Zeitfracht took over WDL Aviation. The overhaul followed quickly: in March 2019 the first Embraer E190 arrived, and in the same year the BAe 146 era ended at the Cologne operator.

LGW: the short chapter with the Dash 8-400

The second building block of the aviation division was Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter (LGW). The airline emerged in 1980 from a flight school at Dortmund Airport and flew the Dash 8-400 from 2008 – for a long time in the livery of Air Berlin. After Air Berlin’s insolvency in 2017, LGW joined the Lufthansa Group and flew on wet lease for Eurowings.

On April 1, 2019, Lufthansa sold LGW to Zeitfracht. The group had previously already taken over parts of Air Berlin’s technical division and brought in an air freight broker with the former Air Berlin subsidiary Leisure Cargo, which it sold again in 2018. From October 2019, LGW and WDL flew under the joint brand German Airways, each with its own air operator certificate.

This constellation did not last long. With the start of the pandemic, Eurowings suspended the wet lease and later terminated the contracts for all 15 turboprops. On April 22, 2020, LGW filed for insolvency under self-administration, and flight operations ended. You can find more on such collapses in the article Major airline failures in Europe.

German Airways: the group’s airline today

Since 2020, German Airways has been legally and economically independent. The ICAO code changed from WDL to GER, the callsign is “GERMAN EAGLE,” and ZQ is registered as the IATA code. On December 1, 2020, the airline joined IATA. It is headquartered in Cologne, with Cologne/Bonn as its home airport. In the same year, the Ligaflieger brand launched for charter flights with sports teams.

The fleet consists exclusively of the Embraer E190, more precisely the E190-100LR version with 100 seats in a 2-2 layout. At the rebranding in April 2025 there were eight aircraft, and for the 2026 summer schedule another one joined with D-ABKE – according to the airline that makes nine; the number can change with every schedule change. The jets carry German registrations in the format D-A…, including D-AJHW, D-ACJJ and D-AMWO. How to tell the E190 apart from its siblings is shown in the guide Telling Embraer E-Jets apart, and the entry on Embraer introduces the manufacturer.

Besides flight operations, German Airways offers line and base maintenance. On the maintenance side, a second airport played a role for a time – more on that in a moment.

Who the group flies for

Since summer 2023, almost the entire E190 fleet has flown on wet lease, mainly for KLM Cityhopper, the regional subsidiary of KLM, and for a time for Luxair. Under KL flight numbers, the jets then connect European cities with the hub Amsterdam Schiphol. Many aircraft therefore carry the titles “Operating for KLM Cityhopper.”

Since the end of March 2026, two German Airways E190s have also flown feeder services for Condor from Frankfurt. On its website, the airline also shows logos of other customers, including Air France, Eurowings, Finnair, LOT, easyJet and SKY express.

Then there is the charter business: under the Ligaflieger brand, German Airways flies soccer clubs and other sports teams, and it also offers one-off charters. Such flights are not in the regular schedule – and are therefore real surprise sightings. How charter and scheduled service differ is explained in Charter flight and scheduled flight.

Rostock-Laage: the excursion into the airport business

Effective January 1, 2022, the Zeitfracht Group took over the operating company of the civil part of Rostock-Laage Airport. Before that, the Rostocker Versorgungs- und Verkehrs-Holding, the district of Rostock and the town of Laage had held the shares. The group moved the maintenance of the German Airways fleet to the airfield in the northeast.

Rostock-Laage is a special airport: it is shared with the Luftwaffe, which has Tactical Air Wing 73 “Steinhoff” (Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 73) with Eurofighters stationed there. Anyone visiting the airfield therefore sees military operations alongside civil jets – you will find hints on that in the article Spotting Eurofighters in Germany and on the rules in Photographing military airfields.

The chapter was short, though. Zeitfracht held the airport company until December 31, 2024, and since the start of 2025 it has belonged to a new owner. Whether and to what extent the E190s are still maintained at Rostock-Laage today is not clearly documented publicly. A sighting of a German Airways E190 there is nevertheless a nice subject for your archive.

Livery and identification

In April 2025, German Airways unveiled a new design. Instead of the name on the tail, the fin now carries a dynamically dotted flag in black, red and gold, and the winglets are in the national colors too. The first repainted aircraft was D-AJHW. You will no longer find the “German Airways” titles on the tail.

Individual jets carry advertising liveries, such as D-ACJJ with the motif “Herpa 75 years” and D-AMWO in a DTM livery. Earlier, liveries for companies from the group’s environment were also seen, including Leysieffer and Adler Modemärkte – both companies that Zeitfracht owned for a time and has since sold again. How to track down such aircraft is shown in the guide Finding special liveries.

IATA and ICAO codes explained gives an overview of the system of airline and airport codes. It is especially worthwhile with the Zeitfracht Group: with WDL, LGW and GER, three ICAO codes have run through the group in just a few years – and LGW is also the IATA code of London Gatwick.

Spotting Zeitfracht jets

The obvious starting point is Cologne/Bonn. From the observation deck at Cologne/Bonn Airport you have a good overview, even if the E190s are mostly out in the customer network during the day. In Frankfurt, the Zeppelinheim viewing platform is worth it for Condor feeders, and in Amsterdam the Polderbaan spotter spot (Spotterplaats).

Because assignments change, the tracker is your most important tool: search for the fleet’s registrations and check where the jets are currently flying. With the current runway direction in use, you then know which side of the airport to go to. Sports charters under Ligaflieger turn up at short notice – such sightings belong in the category of rare aircraft.

Common mix-ups

• Mistaking Zeitfracht for an airline – Zeitfracht is the holding; German Airways does the flying.
• Equating German Airways with LGW – LGW carried the brand only briefly in 2019 and 2020; today’s airline is the former WDL.
• KL flight number equals KLM aircraft – a German E190 operates many KLM Cityhopper flights.
• Taking Condor feeders for Condor jets – since 2026, some Frankfurt feeders are flown by E190s of the group.
• Confusing the E190 with the E190-E2 – the second generation has much larger engines and no classic winglets.
• Taking Kolibri for a new operator – the new name concerns the holding and the logistics business, not the aircraft.

Conclusion

The Zeitfracht Group is not a classic airline group but a logistics family business with a small yet exciting aviation division. With WDL Aviation it bought one of the oldest German airlines in 2017, with LGW briefly a Dash 8 operator, and for three years even an airport. What remains is German Airways: a Cologne-based E190 fleet that flies almost exclusively in the name of other airlines. If you note the registration too, you assign every sighting correctly – and sort old photos of BAe 146s and Dash 8-400s correctly along the way.