An English claim for a global premium carrier
For more than a decade, Lufthansa told the world that "There's no better way to fly." The line, created by the agency McCann Erickson around the turn of the millennium, became the English-language claim that accompanied the German flag carrier through its most internationally confident years.1, 2, 3 It was short, declarative and unembarrassed about its ambition. The airline was not promising a good way to fly. It was claiming the best one.
The claim arrived at a moment when Lufthansa was consolidating its position as a premium long-haul carrier and a founding member of the Star Alliance, formed in 1997.4, 5 The brand spoke primarily to frequent business travellers, and the slogan matched that audience.2, 3 It framed flying with Lufthansa as a mark of judgement, the rational choice of people who knew quality when they saw it.
It was also a claim of its time. The early 2000s were a period of expansion and optimism for network carriers, before low-cost competition and the Gulf airlines reshaped the market. Stating outright that no one flew better was a posture the era allowed, and Lufthansa occupied it comfortably.
A statement of superiority
"There's no better way to fly" worked as a comparative without ever naming a competitor. By asserting that nothing surpassed Lufthansa, it placed the brand at the top of a field it never had to describe. That confidence suited the German engineering reputation the airline traded on, the sense of precision, reliability and seriousness that travellers associated with the crane. The claim and the brand reinforced one another, a disciplined and understated identity paired with a quietly absolute promise.
Because it was written in English rather than German, the line travelled. The same six words could anchor campaigns in dozens of markets without translation, which mattered for a carrier whose route map and customer base were global. English claims were common in international aviation, but few were as flatly self-assured as this one. It did not describe a destination, a fleet or a service. It simply ranked Lufthansa first.
The line appeared across television, print and airport environments throughout the 2000s, including a long run of commercials that staged the comfort and reach of the Lufthansa network.6 Repetition was part of its strength. A claim held steady for years becomes a fixed point, and Lufthansa let this one settle into the brand until it read almost as a statement of fact rather than advertising.
Defending the words
Lufthansa treated the claim as an asset worth protecting. When British Airways later built communication around the closely related line "The way to fly," Lufthansa publicly objected to the similarity, a reminder that a slogan, once established, becomes part of a brand's competitive territory.7 The episode underlined how seriously the airline regarded its verbal identity, not as decoration but as property.
That protectiveness made sense given how much weight the line carried. For a brand whose visual identity, the crane in its ring, had remained remarkably stable since 1918, the verbal claim was one of the few elements that could be owned and defended in language.5 Lufthansa had long understood the value of consistency in its symbols, and it extended the same logic to its words.
From superiority to service
By the end of the 2000s, the ground beneath the claim had shifted. On short and medium routes, low-cost carriers such as Ryanair, easyJet and Lufthansa's own Germanwings were reshaping expectations about price.1, 5 On long-haul routes, the Gulf carriers Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad were investing heavily in product and service.1 In that environment, a claim that announced Lufthansa as simply the best risked sounding both contestable and aloof.
Inside the company, the tone increasingly read as elitist, a message delivered from above rather than alongside the passenger.1, 2 Lufthansa wanted to broaden its appeal beyond the core of business flyers toward families, retirees and younger travellers, and to be seen as a quality airline for everyone rather than a premium carrier for the performance-minded few.1, 2, 3 A claim built on superiority did not easily carry that more inclusive ambition.
In early 2012 Lufthansa retired "There's no better way to fly" and replaced it with "Nonstop you," developed by the Hamburg agency Kolle Rebbe.8 The change marked a deliberate move from a statement about the airline to a statement about the customer.8, 6 After roughly twelve years, the claim that had defined Lufthansa's most assertive era gave way to a softer and more personal register.2
Seen across the brand's longer history, "There's no better way to fly" represented a particular phase of confidence. It belonged to a time when Lufthansa could state its leadership plainly and expect the market to agree. The claims that followed would spend their energy not on asserting superiority but on describing what the journey meant to the people taking it.
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. W&V, "'Nonstop you': Wie der Kolle-Rebbe-Claim die Marke Lufthansa neu ausrichten soll", 2012, the article the verse was written from, which its sources record as stating that "Nonstop you" replaced the slogan introduced around twelve years earlier by McCann Erickson and that the old claim was felt to be too elitist; cited for McCann Erickson as the agency that created "There's no better way to fly" around the turn of the millennium, for the claim having come to read as elitist inside the company, for the wish to reach families, retirees and younger travellers and to present Lufthansa as a quality airline for everyone rather than a premium carrier for the performance-minded, and for the pressure from Ryanair, easyJet and Germanwings on short and medium-haul routes and from Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad on long-haul routes. The article returned HTTP 410 and no archived copy could be retrieved, so its wording, date and byline could not be checked during the retrofit; McCann Erickson's authorship of the claim, the elitism, the audience groups and the competitor names other than Germanwings rest on this article alone; page not reachable on 2 October 2026. https://www.wuv.de/Archiv/%22Nonstop-you%22-Wie-der-Kolle-Rebbe-Claim-die-Marke-Lufthansa-neu-ausrichten-soll
2. medienmilch, "Kolle Rebbe startet neue Kampagne für Lufthansa", 3 March 2012, for "There's no better way to fly" having been introduced in 2000 and replaced with the first Kolle Rebbe campaign starting on 5 March 2012, which dates the claim to the turn of the millennium and puts its run at roughly twelve years, and for the assessment of the old claim as performance-oriented and phrased from the company's own point of view, in the original German: "Der im Jahr 2000 eingeführte Claim ‚There's no better way to fly' ist ein starkes Werbeversprechen, das allerdings eher leistungsbetont und sehr aus der Lufthansa-Unternehmenssicht formuliert ist."; and for Lufthansa's leading role in business travel and the aim of addressing private travellers more clearly than before ("nicht nur die führende Rolle der Lufthansa im Geschäftsreisesegment festigen, sondern deutlicher als bisher auch die Privatreisenden ansprechen"). The page carries no byline. A German marketing news site, off whitelist and used for corroboration only. Added during the footnote retrofit. https://www.medienmilch.de/gereifter-kaese/archivuebersicht/artikel/details/102774kolle-rebbe-startet-neue-kampagne-fuer-lufthansa
3. ONEtoONE, "Kolle Rebbe positioniert Lufthansa neu", 27 March 2012, for McCann Erickson as Lufthansa's long-standing account holder until the pitch Kolle Rebbe won ("den langjährigen Etathalter McCann Erickson"), which corroborates footnote 1 on the agency but does not itself name the author of the claim; for the old claim having shut out private travellers, so that it spoke to business travellers ("schloss Privatreisende aus"); and for the aim of Lufthansa as a quality airline for everyone, in the words of Andreas Winter-Buerke, Geschäftsführer Beratung at Kolle Rebbe: "Die Fluglinie ist jetzt Qualitäts-Airline für alle". The page carries no byline. A German marketing trade publication, off whitelist and used for corroboration only. Added during the footnote retrofit. https://onetoone.de/de/artikel/kolle-rebbe-positioniert-lufthansa-neu
4. Wikipedia, "Star Alliance", retrieved 2 October 2026, for the alliance having been formed in 1997 with Lufthansa among its five founding airlines ("The Star Alliance was announced on 14 May 1997 by five airlines from three continents: Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways International and United Airlines."). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Alliance
5. Wikipedia, "Lufthansa", retrieved 2 October 2026, for Lufthansa as one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, established in 1997; for the encircled stylised crane first created in 1918 by Otto Firle; and for Germanwings as the company's own low-cost carrier ("the company's re-branded low-cost carrier Germanwings"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa
6. Lufthansa, "Campaigns", the centenary page on a hundred years of Lufthansa advertising, undated, retrieved 2 October 2026, for "There's no better way to fly" as "the clear claim of the 2000s", the result of a passion for the passengers' well-being "combined with visualizations of peace and comfort", and for "Nonstop you" as the claim with which advertising "focuses more and more on humans and the traveler as an individual". The page does not name the media the claim ran in; television, print and airport environments rest on no source. Official brand page. Added during the footnote retrofit. https://www.lufthansa.com/de/en/100-years/campaigns
7. Marketing Week, "Lufthansa slams BA over slogan similarity", 21 April 2004, for British Airways' new line "The way to fly" and for Lufthansa publicly objecting to its similarity with "There's no better way to fly", a Lufthansa spokeswoman asking "why anyone should prefer 'the way to fly' with BA when you can go with Lufthansa where 'there's no better way to fly'?". Published under the Marketing Week byline. Off whitelist and used for corroboration only. https://www.marketingweek.com/lufthansa-slams-ba-over-slogan-similarity/
8. Lufthansa, "'Nonstop you' - Lufthansa launches new ad campaign", 8 March 2012, the airline's release as carried by MarketScreener via Publicnow, standing in for the Lufthansa Group Newsroom listed in the verse's sources, whose archive no longer reaches back to 2012; for "Nonstop you" as the new claim, for the campaign having been "developed by Kolle Rebbe, Hamburg, which was chosen as the lead agency at the end of 2011", for the first print ads on 5 March 2012, and for the move from the airline to the customer in the words of Dr. Reinhold Huber, Senior Vice President Product and Marketing, Lufthansa German Airlines: "Now we are no longer talking so much about what Lufthansa does or what we do for our passengers. Rather the focus is on the people we are doing it for." Third-party mirror of the official release, used because the original is no longer online. https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/LUFTHANSA-436827/news/Deutsche-Lufthansa-AG-Nonstop-you-Lufthansa-launches-new-ad-campaign-14204288/
