Lufthansa likely to expand long-haul low-cost ops - CEO in FT

German carrier Lufthansa is likely to expand its planned low-cost long-haul operations if their launch goes well, its Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told The Financial Times.

Lufthansa last month announced a new strategy that includes expanding low-cost services in Europe and on intercontinental flights as it battles competition from Middle Eastern and budget airlines.

It has said it would build up the inter-continental budget service to seven Boeing 767s or Airbus A330s readily available on the market.

"If it works we'll be rolling it over into A350s or 787s and we probably won't stop at seven planes," the paper quoted Carsten Spohr as saying in an interview published on Friday.

Lufthansa currently has 25 A350-900s and no 787s on order, according to its website.

It has not yet decided whether to team up with a partner for the low-cost business or go it alone and has been in talks with Turkish Airlines on the matter.

"I want to be in the air by next fall," Spohr told the FT.

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New Lufthansa CEO Un-Retires A340s For Long-Haul Flights

Game on.

One day after officially taking over as Lufthansa Airlines’ new CEO, Carsten Spohr is putting his words into action. Spohr will retrofit nine Airbus 340-300s that were set to be retired and use them on select long-haul routes starting next summer, hoping to regain marketshare Lufthansa has lost to gulf airlines, according to the German magazine Spiegel.

While being introduced as the new CEO, Spohr said that while he believes Lufthansa can compete in Europe with low-cost airlines like Ryanair, “Those we can handle. They’re on a level playing ield. With the Gulf carriers, it’s different,” he said. The Germain carrier has had a feud with such airlines as Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, and believes – as do British Airways and Air France – that Gulf airlines use unfair subsidies to finance their aircraft deals, according to Bloomberg News.

Thus, the move to retrofit the A340s makes sense.

Lufthansa will offer low-cost long-haul flights on these aircraft, which will be reconfigured with less business class seats, on routes to the Caribbean and the Far East, among other long-haul spots.

Spiegel noted that Lufthansa will negotiate with airport operators and staff regarding concessions in order to keep costs down for the low-cost flights.

More immediately, Spohr will need to settle a labor dispute with his pilots’ union, which launched a three-day strike last month that cost the airline more than $70 million against what had been a 22 percent rise in stock price since September.

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