Despite global financial uncertainty, I was surprised to hear at a Lufthansa press briefing in Malta that besides Malta (which has so far done well) Greece was the other country with promising results for the airline. We were told that with 150.000 passengers choosing Lufthansa in 2012 for flights to and from Malta, a remarkable increase of more than 15% compared to the year before was noted.
Lufthansa is a very independent company, which is preparing for further growth, Mr Carsten Scaeffer, vice president of sales and services, Southeast Europe, Africa and Middle East told us. He gave us news of more connections to the hubs in Frankfurt and Munich and that the airline will offer more flights than ever from Malta to Germany and beyond.
Starting on April 6, Lufthansa, which is currently operating one daily flight between Malta and Frankfurt, will add a second daily flight on weekends, to its main hub, while connections will double from 1 August to twice daily. Flights to and from Munich, Bavaria’s capital, will also increase with five flights per week starting in August. The adjusted departure and arrival flights offer perfect connections to long haul destinations.
“We have decided to gradually increase our flights from eight weekly departures today to 19 weekly departures in August. This means a tremendous increase of capacity and a strong confidence in future perspectives of business and leisure from and to Malta,” added Sylvain Heydlauf, Lufthansa’s general manager in Malta.
"If the increase in flights over the summer period comes up to expectations the airline hopes to be able to add a morning flight. This would make transfer flights from Frankfurt easier to connect," said Aage Dünhaupt, group communications director South East Europe and Middle East.
“In addition to the even better network opportunities from Malta, Lufthansa committed itself to invest more than €3bn over the next three years into the ground and on board product. New seats in all classes, individual in-flight entertainment in Economy Class, a special upgrade to the food service in First and Business Class, as well as brand new lounges will help us to set new industry standards,” explained Mr Schaeffer.
“The backbone of our business is as a corporate carrier, but we also want to extend our services by adding more leisure destinations such as Marrakech”, he added.
Lufthansa made an operating profit of €524m last year. I asked Mr Scaeffer what kind of restructuring Lufthansa had undertaken to keep their profits up and ensure continual growth?
"We are in the middle of the restructuring process now and are reshaping and refocusing as we speak. We are changing our internal structures, our Cologne offices are to close and we are working on whether we need to redesign our marketing. Information Technology is crucial to our restructuring. With all the new communication media - Facebook, Twitter and Smartphones - the way you sell has totally changed. By the fall we shall know exactly where we are and where we are going," said Mr Schaeffer.
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