The story
Hapag-Lloyd Express GmbH was established in 2002 and began operations in early December, two months after Germanwings, its direct German competitor at Cologne Bonn airport. Despite starting its service later and serving fewer routes, HLX gained a higher recognition and a better reputation through its category-defining campaign "Fly for the price of a taxi", as well as higher load factors. A digital-first strategy resulted in more absolute website traffic and a higher share of online sales than any other airline in Germany within the first year of operation. The airline subsequently won the "Effie" efficiency awards in Germany and Europe recognizing its more effective branding, marketing, and sales strategy.
Its main competitors were more established no-frills carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet, as well as other low-cost startups such as Germanwings or Transavia.com, consequently being constantly engaged in a price war with these carriers. In an attempt to win it, the airline expanded rapidly in the first half of 2004, announcing many new routes that it viewed as underserved by other airlines. Examples of such routes included Dublin to Hamburg and Stuttgart, both of which were later cancelled.
Hapag-Lloyd Express (HLX) accelerated the adoption of low-cost air travel in Germany by combining bold branding and marketing with an early hybrid LCC model, demonstrating both the demand potential and the structural limits of subscale, tour-operator-backed entrants in a consolidating European market. In January 2007, Hapag-Lloyd Express and Hapag-Lloyd Flug were merged into TUIfly as an attempt to reorganize TUI's airline portfolio. HLX continued operations until its complete absorption on July 1, 2010.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hapag-Lloyd Express, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4