Hapag-Lloyd Airlines was founded in 1972 by the shipping conglomerate Hapag-Lloyd to fly its cruise passengers from Germany to the cruises’ ports of call. Since its beginning the airline has also added scheduled passenger flights as well.

Hapag-Lloyd was acquired in 1998 by TUI AG, a tourism conglomerate, and became its fully-owned subsidiary in 2002. With this acquisition came a livery change for Hapag-Lloyd to the standard TUI group livery, blue fuselage with Hapag-Lloyd titles and TUI logo on the tail.