Hapag-Lloyd market was planned in 2004. As part of that process, its business units other than the container line and cruise line were planned for divestiture. In 2008 TUI announced an intention to sell its entire stake in Hapag-Lloyd shipping activities before the end of that year. Industry speculation predicted a sale price of approximately $US5.9 billion. Hapag-Lloyd founded the charter airline Hapag-Lloyd Flug in 1972, buying a few Boeing 727s to fly its cruise passengers from Germany to the cruises' ports of call. The airline eventually added some regular passenger flights as well. Hapag-Lloyd Flug used the IATA code HF
Deutsche Luft Hansa League, a powerful mediaeval trading group). The airline was created by a merger between "Deutscher Aero Lloyd" (an airline formed in 1923 out of the earlier airline DLR or Deutsche Luft-Reederei by AEG, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and Dornier as a co-operation between the shipping companies "Norddeutscher Lloyd" and Hamburg America Line) and "Junkers Luftverkehr", the in-house airline of Junkers. This action was taken due to an initiative of the German government which hoped to reduce the amount of financial support it provided to the two partly state-owned airlines, which were both plagued by heavy debts at that time.The stylised flying crane