Lufthansa budget airline Eurowings has launched flights from Munich and is already planning further expansion at Germany’s second-largest airport.

Eurowings has stationed four planes at Munich to fly to 31 destinations this summer, mostly holiday destinations in southern Europe along with several city routes. The Airbus jets are among the 33 planes that Eurowings is wet-leasing from Air Berlin.

CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt said the airline has seen good initial bookings above its expectations and hopes to fly some 500,000 passengers from Munich in the first year. “We’re already virtually fully booked for Easter, and anyone who wants cheap fares for the summer will have to hurry up,” he commented.

The airline is already looking ahead and plans to station two more planes in Munich for the summer 2018 season. Garnadt hopes to be able to pick up slots vacated by Transavia, which will end its Munich flights in October as part of a network downsizing.

Meanwhile, Eurowings is launching new weekly routes from other airports this summer. In June, it will start flights from Cologne to Enfidha in Tunisia and Preveza (Parga/Lefkada) in Greece, and from Vienna to Kalamata in Greece.

Moreover, Eurowings will use a 310-seat A330, originally planned for long-haul services, for short-haul flights from several German airports to Majorca this summer in response to heavy demand. The wide-body plane will operate up to three times a week from Cologne, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart in May and June before it switches as planned to long-haul routes. Eurowings reportedly expects passenger numbers to Majorca to increase by 150,000 to 1.35 million this summer.

Last month the budget airline launched Eurowings Holidays, a new portal offering package holidays combining Eurowings flights with hotel accommodation and transfers supplied by dynamic packaging specialist Tropo.

Eurowings has also announced its main schedule for the forthcoming winter season. New routes include a weekly flight from Cologne to Cape Town, a new Düsseldorf – Hurghada service as well as flights from Munich to the Canary Islands and Morocco.

In 2016, Eurowings increased revenues by 150% to nearly €2.1 billion thanks to its continued expansion but it fell into the red with a loss of €91 million compared to a profit of €38 million in 2015 due to higher operating costs. This year the budget carrier aims to fly back to profit