https://www.aerotelegraph.com/en/boeing ... ing-orders

Just as a side note. LH won’t be cancelling any orders. I’m not surprised there, this capital injection has secured their future. It’s nice to see them have some stability after a rough couple of months.

Opus99 wrote:

https://www.aerotelegraph.com/en/boeing-airbus-lufthansa-wont-cancel-existing-orders

Just as a side note. LH won’t be cancelling any orders. I’m not surprised there, this capital injection has secured their future. It’s nice to see them have some stability after a rough couple of months.

And it will certainly come as a relief to Airbus and Boeing as this confirms part of their order books and thus supply chains. That´s certainly one of the indirect side effects of keeping large airlines intact, as the trickle-down effects are clearly visible.

Waterbomber2 wrote:

Great news for Lufthansa and its workers.
Thiele is your hero.

Anyone want to bet that they're going to be asking more money by Christmas time?

Germany will be brought to its knees. Heavily industrialised countries have more to lose in this crisis.

I predict that LH will be bankrupt by next spring, through lack of liquidity but also cumulated losses.
Germany won't be able to save it then.

Strikes coming soon! I personally don't fly LH anymore. They became really unreliable at one point.

KingOrGod wrote:

Waterbomber2 wrote:

Great news for Lufthansa and its workers.
Thiele is your hero.

Anyone want to bet that they're going to be asking more money by Christmas time?

Germany will be brought to its knees. Heavily industrialised countries have more to lose in this crisis.

I predict that LH will be bankrupt by next spring, through lack of liquidity but also cumulated losses.
Germany won't be able to save it then.

Strikes coming soon! I personally don't fly LH anymore. They became really unreliable at one point.

I don't think they are going to strike, at least not until financial reports improve and that's going to be another two years... at least.

Oh dear...
There are no strikes on the horizon for the next years. Maybe there will be some protests of people loosing their job. But for the majority of LH, the unions are just making the collective agreements. And they will last for the next 4 years. Minimum. And everyone at LH should know that there is no money to strike for. Even the strange unions were able to understand that so far.
And if you think of strikes at, lets say LH Technik, because of a possible sale: LH not affected, because LH has its own maintenance since last year. And so it will be with a lot things more. Think it will not be too far that you will see "Gate Gourmet" trucks doing the catering at LH planes. There will be more to come. Rough times ahead...

LH cabin crew union voted in favor of an agreement on cost savings through 2024.
Agreement with pilots and ground staff still pending.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/luft ... anagement/

It is so great to see maturity among LH employees.

Pilots is much more difficult as they were over staffed before the crisis and fluctuation is much lower.

By suddenly retiring most big quads now LH happens to get rid of the most senior, highest paid and most unionized pilots as well. Those were the core of the "troublemakers" from a management standpoint.

Noshow wrote:

By suddenly retiring most big quads now LH happens to get rid of the most senior, highest paid and most unionized pilots as well. Those were the core of the "troublemakers" from a management standpoint.

That depends. Just because LH retires the 744 for example doesn’t necessarily mean they are allowed to just fire all the 744 pilots.

Noshow wrote:

By suddenly retiring most big quads now LH happens to get rid of the most senior, highest paid and most unionized pilots as well. Those were the core of the "troublemakers" from a management standpoint.

How are they doing that? Out right buy outs? Furloughs?

No they will not fire them right away but possibly make them leave with redundancy packages or similar? Bottom line: This group will shrink or evaporate.

Polot wrote:

Noshow wrote:

By suddenly retiring most big quads now LH happens to get rid of the most senior, highest paid and most unionized pilots as well. Those were the core of the "troublemakers" from a management standpoint.

That depends. Just because LH retires the 744 for example doesn’t necessarily mean they are allowed to just fire all the 744 pilots.

Correct. 744/74H are one fleet, that now is, unfortunately, set to shrink. But the bigger part of it remains, and with it a lion's share of the most experienced, competent crew.

OTOH, the biggies normally carrying the most senior crew, some of them are quite likely near regular retirement anyway.

It's not only the 747-400, it's most of the A380 and all of the A340-600. Consider the crew factor and that is a huge part of long range pilots. Only a part will move on to the 777-9, 787 and A350 fleets.

Part of 380-crew are already cross-qualified for 350, some who are not to follow, some people will switch to continental flying, then fluctuation, normal and incentivized.

346-crew are c-q on either 333/343 or both, so no automatized shedding here, neither.

Slashing fleets equalling slashing senior crew is a bad phantasy. Au contraire, keeping younger seniority in the rank is a key union task. "Troublemakers" remain a necessity.

Slashing fleets IS related to crew requirements. And slashing mostly the biggest types in a fleet affects a certain pool of higher ranking people more than others. This is what my remark was about. It's surprisingly quiet about this.

Noshow wrote:

Slashing fleets IS related to crew requirements. And slashing mostly the biggest types in a fleet affects a certain pool of higher ranking people more than others. This is what my remark was about. It's surprisingly quiet about this.

The senior crew on the A380 etc. fleets is not going to be laid off. They'll be transferred to other fleets and displace the least senior crew there, which cascades down the seniority list until the youngest crew at LH is left without a job.

Same at DL, who didn't lay off their entire 777 crews, or BA, who didn't fire their 747 crews either.

Now LH has a short term deal until the end of the year with pilots that will help reduce cost and give the two sides more time to craft longer-term deal. As part of the agreement, LH agrees on pilot job guarantees until at least March 31, 2021.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-luft ... SKCN25F1LD

Why is Lufthansa looking to shrink so much? Unlike other leading airlines in Europe such as Air France, British Airways, KLM, Iberia among others have reduced their fleets but will continue to receive more new aircraft in a fast time as BA retired their B747s but will continue to receive Airbus A350-1000, BOEING 777 -300ER / 787-10 without reducing its intercontinental network so much, the same with KL they retired their B747s but they continue to receive Boeing 787-10 and Boeing 777-300ER without reducing routes, Air France also withdrew the A380s but more Airbus A350s continue to arrive- 900, both BA, AF, KL have not reduced their intercontinental network so much.

In case of Lufthansa is making big reductions with the retirement of the Airbus A380, Boeing 747-400, Airbus A340-600 are more than 30 planes! how many routes to eliminate. Lufthansa has remained much more profitable than BA, AF, KL and most of the FRA and MUC routes are very profitable, the further reductions will be crazy! being LH a very strong airlines in markets such as North America, India, East Asia and China. With the delay of the Boeing 777-9X and in addition to the fact that the new Airbus A350 will only be in MUC, there will be massive reductions in FRA.

It does not seem like a good LH plan to reduce so much it will only give more leadership to BA, AF and KL

LH always remained strong in the face of the Asian crisis of the 90s, 9/11, the financial crisis 2007-2009, but these reductions are an exaggeration, I do not want to imagine which routes are going to go

To start with, I believe they are just ahead of all the rest when coming to admit how bad this crisis is for aviation. The others are still wishfully hoping that the cuts they already made will be enough. The other airlines will eventually have to make the same cuts.

Another factor is that Lufthansa group generally had a lot of older and more inefficient types in service. It is easy to get rid of a small fleet of 8 A380s, or outdated and big types like the 747-400 and A340-600. Austrian's oddball 767 and 777-200ER fleet is an easy target. They still have 17 ageing A340-300s.
That isn't really the case at BA, where the only really old and inefficient planes were the 747s. What else should they cut? The 777-300ERs are all young, phasing those out would cost BA a fortune. The 777-200ER? They can way more reliably fill those than the 777-300ER. The situation was a bit the same at Iberia, where the A340 fleet was almost completely replaced with young A330s and A350s. KLM, similar story. 747s were almost retired anyway, 777-300ERs are still young. The A330 and 777-200ER would be the most obvious targets, but those are easier to fill.

And a final factor is that many of the airliners still flying at the other airlines have been stripped of their seats and converted to improvised cargo aircraft. Lufthansa already has a large fleet of 15 dedicated cargo MD-11s and 777Fs. AF-KLM has a combined total of 6 dedicated cargo aircraft, IAG has none at all.

BA have withdrawn 12 A380s and ~28 B744s this year. I can't see the A380s returning, the missing bit is how many B777-200s will leave, regardless of the new B78Xs and A359s arriving. No view has been expressed (I think) as to how many A320 series are going. Given Gatwick is (almost certainly) closing, that whole fleet is now spare. I don't believe for a minute that half the secondary US cities will operate next year, if even return in the medium term.

Today KLM presents their restructure plan to the govt. LH is a little ahead of the curve in regards to preparing for very bad times, they are also larger than AFKL and IAG so makes sense the cuts are a bit deeper too.
Local politics now play a role too in terms of travel advisories etc. It’s all a giant sh1tshow unfortunately and if this goes on for much longer and recovery is postponed even more you will see even bigger cuts. Terribly sad state of affairs (not only in aviation).

skipness1E wrote:

BA have withdrawn 12 A380s and ~28 B744s this year. I can't see the A380s returning, the missing bit is how many B777-200s will leave, regardless of the new B78Xs and A359s arriving. No view has been expressed (I think) as to how many A320 series are going. Given Gatwick is (almost certainly) closing, that whole fleet is now spare. I don't believe for a minute that half the secondary US cities will operate next year, if even return in the medium term.

BA still does not plan to retire any A380, in winter some will fly MIA, LAX, JNB, and in the summer 2021 schedule they will fly LAX, SFO (double daily), ORD, BOS, JNB, SIN and HKG
And most of the B77Es are replacing the B747
No retirement plans for the B77E yet

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

BA have withdrawn 12 A380s and ~28 B744s this year. I can't see the A380s returning, the missing bit is how many B777-200s will leave, regardless of the new B78Xs and A359s arriving. No view has been expressed (I think) as to how many A320 series are going. Given Gatwick is (almost certainly) closing, that whole fleet is now spare. I don't believe for a minute that half the secondary US cities will operate next year, if even return in the medium term.

BA still does not plan to retire any A380, in winter some will fly MIA, LAX, JNB, and in the summer 2021 schedule they will fly LAX, SFO (double daily), ORD, BOS, JNB, SIN and HKG
And most of the B77Es are replacing the B747
No retirement plans for the B77E yet

That plan is to be binned immintently, BA has not updated its winter schedule. They still have the schedule operating 6 flights to NYC on the 25 october, meanwhile the 24th has 2 flights. The 380 is most likely not coming back i'm afraid.

Because they got 10 billion in bail outs and in about 10 to 20 million seconds, they will have nothing to show for it.
It's a ticking time bomb.

Others are not in a much better position but being the biggest (in Europe) is a heavy burden at times like these.
If you start an airline out of FRA with a good pile of cash and 20 ATR72's, you may be so successful at keeping LH grounded that you could run them out of business.

The business of international travel will become more politicised than usual, and airlines' need to take this into account. Good example of this is the current Lufthansa spat in India, where New Delhi said Lufthansa was operating disproportionate number of flights as part of the 'air bubble' agreement to Air India, and asked them to curtail the same. LH's reaction has been to suspend ALL flights till mid-October. Normalisation of flying is very far away, airlines seem to be just preparing for the same.

I agree with most replies here, and concur that Lufthansa is merely exercising prudent business measures to right-size their fleet as the true impact of the crisis - and the ramifications of a second wave - is starting to become more predictable than in previous months. The greater clarity is leading to the drastic measures of LH.

Sadly, others will follow.

VSMUT wrote:

To start with, I believe they are just ahead of all the rest when coming to admit how bad this crisis is for aviation. The others are still wishfully hoping that the cuts they already made will be enough. The other airlines will eventually have to make the same cuts.

Another factor is that Lufthansa group generally had a lot of older and more inefficient types in service. It is easy to get rid of a small fleet of 8 A380s, or outdated and big types like the 747-400 and A340-600. Austrian's oddball 767 and 777-200ER fleet is an easy target. They still have 17 ageing A340-300s.
That isn't really the case at BA, where the only really old and inefficient planes were the 747s. What else should they cut? The 777-300ERs are all young, phasing those out would cost BA a fortune. The 777-200ER? They can way more reliably fill those than the 777-300ER. The situation was a bit the same at Iberia, where the A340 fleet was almost completely replaced with young A330s and A350s. KLM, similar story. 747s were almost retired anyway, 777-300ERs are still young. The A330 and 777-200ER would be the most obvious targets, but those are easier to fill.

And a final factor is that many of the airliners still flying at the other airlines have been stripped of their seats and converted to improvised cargo aircraft. Lufthansa already has a large fleet of 15 dedicated cargo MD-11s and 777Fs. AF-KLM has a combined total of 6 dedicated cargo aircraft, IAG has none at all.

LH's expectations are for a full recovery of air traffic by 2024 when they should be getting 77X's and 789's. On the other hand, they have said they will bring back some 380s and 346s if there is a "demand recovery that exceeds their expectations" therefore they are putting themselves on a spot that enables them to react to different scenarios.

LH's 346s are not much older than BA's, KL's or AF's 77Es. With oil trading below 50USD operating cost of a 4-engine gets close to that of a 2-engine, that's why LX is keeping their 343's on the air. LH simply had too many 4-engine types so they had no choce than to ground most of them.

I think you’re going to see that Lufthansa is the brightest bulb in the room and as the months go by will be hailed as visionaries. They seem to be looking past those holding out their hands for more government money and realizing their business needs to survive long term without constant government cash/loans/bailouts. It’s become increasingly clear the original estimates of industry disruption was incorrect and recovery is taking much longer. Combine that with some permanent changes in travel patterns and Lufthansa is making the smart moves and right sizing for the future. Other airlines will be wise to follow suit.

From what I have seen, the LH plan seems sensible, other competitors like AF/KL and BA/IB seem to have made similarly deep cuts too.

In terms of fleet, unfortunately taking capacity out of the market is the way to go at the moment. Hence the huge withdrawals in fleet types. I do think these will come back though:

LH A380's - some/all will return. Testing and better travel arrangements in the 6+ months will improve confidence. They are also under payment arrangements and I can't imagine another operator taking these over.
LH 747-8's - all will return. Same as above.
LH A340-600 - won't return. Not because they are 'expensive to run', just because this is the obvious aircraft to keep out of operation due to age/fleet planning flexibility.
LH A340-300 - have these gone yet? Saw a picture of one at FRA the other day.
LH other - shorthaul aircraft have and will be chopped and changed more quickly, although short-haul is now picking up gradually all the time.

AF/KL - fleet difficult to gauge. Ex-France Short-haul seems to be rebounding quicker than other Western European markets. Huge state aid support usually outweighs any loss making issues!

BA A380's - will return as per LH reasons. Long haul network has already re-grown by a 5th since June.
BA/IB A32S's - loads coming off lease anyway. Lots on order but have flexible delivery terms.
BA ERJ's - many coming off lease, as demand returns leases may be extended.

LX138 wrote:

LH A340-300 - have these gone yet? Saw a picture of one at FRA the other day.

LH 343s are running full steam on the remaining long-haul routes these days, along with the 333s.

They still have decent efficiency and maintenance costs (unlike the 600). And oh, they are the perfect post-covid sized airliner.

upperdeckfan wrote:

LH's 346s are not much older than BA's, KL's or AF's 77Es. With oil trading below 50USD operating cost of a 4-engine gets close to that of a 2-engine, that's why LX is keeping their 343's on the air. LH simply had too many 4-engine types so they had no choce than to ground most of them.

The Lufthansa A340-600 fleet was delivered between 2003 and 2009. The BA 777-300ER fleet was delivered from 2010 and onwards. KLM's 777-300ER fleet was delivered from 2008 onwards, with half of them being under 6 years old. The Lufthansa A340-600s were somewhat older than the comparable jets flown by its competitors.

LX138 wrote:

LH A380's - some/all will return. Testing and better travel arrangements in the 6+ months will improve confidence. They are also under payment arrangements and I can't imagine another operator taking these over.
LH 747-8's - all will return. Same as above.
LH A340-600 - won't return. Not because they are 'expensive to run', just because this is the obvious aircraft to keep out of operation due to age/fleet planning flexibility.
LH A340-300 - have these gone yet? Saw a picture of one at FRA the other day.
LH other - shorthaul aircraft have and will be chopped and changed more quickly, although short-haul is now picking up gradually all the time.

Didn't they announce last week that the entire A380 fleet was leaving permanently now? The 17 A340-300 are still there, and will probably soldier on until replaced by more A350-900s and the 787-9.

VSMUT wrote:

upperdeckfan wrote:

LH's 346s are not much older than BA's, KL's or AF's 77Es. With oil trading below 50USD operating cost of a 4-engine gets close to that of a 2-engine, that's why LX is keeping their 343's on the air. LH simply had too many 4-engine types so they had no choce than to ground most of them.

The Lufthansa A340-600 fleet was delivered between 2003 and 2009. The BA 777-300ER fleet was delivered from 2010 and onwards. KLM's 777-300ER fleet was delivered from 2008 onwards, with half of them being under 6 years old. The Lufthansa A340-600s were somewhat older than the comparable jets flown by its competitors.


.

I was referring to AF/KL and BA 77E fleet which are 777-200ERs, delivered in the early 2000s to AF/KL and BA. 777-300ER are coded 77W

VSMUT wrote:

Didn't they announce last week that the entire A380 fleet was leaving permanently now? The 17 A340-300 are still there, and will probably soldier on until replaced by more A350-900s and the 787-9.

6 frames are retiring permanently, remaining 8 frames are going into log-term storage and will be brought back if demands recovery is faster than what LH currently expects,

My understanding is that long-haul is the profitable part of the business for LH. While LH's short-haul loses money or is barely profitable. Since the pandemic has affected long-haul more severely than short-haul, this is where LH is cutting the most and retiring the widebodies they don't need.

Considering long-haul may not come back to normal for years to come, LH, and by extension the EU3, need to figure out to how make their short-haul profitable. Perhaps, the EU3 should look to DL and UA who figured out how to do that. DL and UA, before the pandemic, had profit making domestic operations.

max999 wrote:

DL and UA, before the pandemic, had profit making domestic operations.

their competition is other airlines aside of few routes. Lufthansa has Rail and Car as competition, putting a fairly hard ceiling on domestic prices.

best regards
Thomas

VSMUT wrote:

And a final factor is that many of the airliners still flying at the other airlines have been stripped of their seats and converted to improvised cargo aircraft. Lufthansa already has a large fleet of 15 dedicated cargo MD-11s and 777Fs. AF-KLM has a combined total of 6 dedicated cargo aircraft, IAG has none at all.

I think this is the key reason why DLH (Just the passenger division) is seen to b getting rid of a lot of aircrafts, because the LH Group has Lufthansa Cargo and Aerologic to keep the freight moving. Other European players referenced will be flying their passenger aircraft (sometimes with the seats removed) to convey the freight.

On thebasource.com, you can see the number of pax planes doing cargo only flights.

tommy1808 wrote:

max999 wrote:

DL and UA, before the pandemic, had profit making domestic operations.

their competition is other airlines aside of few routes. Lufthansa has Rail and Car as competition, putting a fairly hard ceiling on domestic prices.

best regards
Thomas

In this context, domestic means short-haul flying all across Europe. Competiton is Ryanair, Wizzair and such.

Rail & car competition is a factor in a few routes in NW Europe but I see very few people driving or taking a train from Frankfurt to Spain or Italy, or from Munich to the UK or Portugal or Sweden to name a few.

European market is fairly different from US market. No way for the legacies to make a living on short haul.

I don’t know of any other airline on the world that has been operating so many four engine aircraft

That can’t help

I reckon Lufthansa is much more dependent on business traffic and connections, which is/will suffer disproportionally from COVID.

British Airways, Air France or Iberia have "historical links" in other parts of the world (Americas, Africa, even Asia for AF and specially BA). But Germany and Lufthansa? Nothing.

You need to realize that we won't see traffic really approach pre-COVID levels until Q2 2022. So we're 18 plus months out from that. Lufthansa, like a lot of other airlines, is just prepping for a prolonged crawl back to pre-COVID levels.

SCQ83 wrote:

I reckon Lufthansa is much more dependent on business traffic and connections, which is/will suffer disproportionally from COVID.

British Airways, Air France or Iberia have "historical links" in other parts of the world (Americas, Africa, even Asia for AF and specially BA). But Germany and Lufthansa? Nothing.

Aside from historical links places like London, Paris, etc have far greater tourist demand than places like Frankfurt. People dream of romantic trips to Paris and whatnot. Virtually nobody dreams of someday having the chance to visit Frankfurt.

Opus99 wrote:

That plan is to be binned immintently, BA has not updated its winter schedule. They still have the schedule operating 6 flights to NYC on the 25 october, meanwhile the 24th has 2 flights. The 380 is most likely not coming back i'm afraid.

They wouldn't have spent the kind of money they did on the A380's during the last few months if they have no plans to bring them back. They're coming back.
https://simpleflying.com/british-airway ... intenance/

airbazar wrote:

Opus99 wrote:

That plan is to be binned immintently, BA has not updated its winter schedule. They still have the schedule operating 6 flights to NYC on the 25 october, meanwhile the 24th has 2 flights. The 380 is most likely not coming back i'm afraid.

They wouldn't have spent the kind of money they did on the A380's during the last few months if they have no plans to bring them back. They're coming back.
https://simpleflying.com/british-airway ... intenance/

Yeah sure use simple flying as the you’re source of ensuring that. I mean BA had JUST spent millions on refurbishing on 747s and updating their cabins and guess what? They were binned.

The reality is that ultimately doesn’t matter when you want to position yourself effectively in the future. That jet even if it comes back. It will be significantly reduced. Who didn’t spend money on heavy maintenance of their 380s? Look at QF that spent millions on refurbishments. A QF 380 flew straight from refurbishment to long term storage and quite frankly every a380 has an extremely low certainty of coming back. Except maybe Emirates

Another big difference between LH mainline and IAG / AFKLM single mainlines is that LH have to deal with multiple hubs.

Look at LH mainline, they have to maintain FRA and MUC. The A359 are bonded at MUC so the A340-300 are their smallest most efficient long-haul plane at FRA that can fly everywhere in the network. They have no choice to use all the A343 because there are too few A330 and they are also range-restricted. But otherwise, the A343 have to go alongside the other planes for retirement.

Eventually there is a point coming that they have to close MUC longhaul and consolidate it at FRA. Flying the core long haul with A359 and A330 with a few 747s could make the most sense for the next 2-3 years.

BA have much more flexibility with their large 787/A350 fleet and still have the 77W on top if needed. Fleetwise they are far better positioned than LH at this point and can fly a bit longer if the crisis is getting worse.

Opus99 wrote:

Yeah sure use simple flying as the you’re source of ensuring that. I mean BA had JUST spent millions on refurbishing on 747s and updating their cabins and guess what? They were binned.

The reality is that ultimately doesn’t matter when you want to position yourself effectively in the future. That jet even if it comes back. It will be significantly reduced. Who didn’t spend money on heavy maintenance of their 380s? Look at QF that spent millions on refurbishments. A QF 380 flew straight from refurbishment to long term storage and quite frankly every a380 has an extremely low certainty of coming back. Except maybe Emirates

EY just made comments that their A380's life span will be short due to their unsatisfactory environmental performance.

airbazar wrote:

Opus99 wrote:

That plan is to be binned immintently, BA has not updated its winter schedule. They still have the schedule operating 6 flights to NYC on the 25 october, meanwhile the 24th has 2 flights. The 380 is most likely not coming back i'm afraid.

They wouldn't have spent the kind of money they did on the A380's during the last few months if they have no plans to bring them back. They're coming back.
https://simpleflying.com/british-airway ... intenance/

I think the author is reading too much into these maintenance flights. It's a positive sign that they aren't being immediately scrapped like the 744s, but it's no guarantee that they will return to service. Plans change all the time, and what we've seen was the summer traffic was below projections and we aren't seeing any evidence of the trend line changing any time soon.

Opus99 wrote:

Yeah sure use simple flying as the you’re source of ensuring that. I mean BA had JUST spent millions on refurbishing on 747s and updating their cabins and guess what? They were binned.

To offer another example, DL had just refurbed ten 77Ls and eight 777s -- and then announced a write off of $1.4 Billion to retire them. Recent refurbishment expense is no guarantee that aircraft will stay in service - not when demand has collapsed with no prospect for immediate full return.

I believe if the OP made a careful review of fleet size and retirement announcements he would find that LH Group really isn't an outlier to other major market-driven carriers with comparable fleet age and flexibility. (An outlier to the perpetually unprofitable, keep it for national pride, job creation holes - maybe.)

Max Q wrote:

I don’t know of any other airline on the world that has been operating so many four engine aircraft

That can’t help

Wow , somebody don`t know the airline "Emirates" with a fleet of 114 380`s

Ronaldo747 wrote:

Another big difference between LH mainline and IAG / AFKLM single mainlines is that LH have to deal with multiple hubs.

Precisely, these are LH weak points in times of crisis:

1. Being profitable on long-haul, but not on shorthaul pre-COVID. KLM was profitable on both long-haul and short-haul, BA profitable on long-haul, and short-haul LHR. AF only long-haul.
2. Compared to LHR, CDG and even AMS, both FRA and MUC have lower O&D demand. LH was a particularly strong transfer operator on long-haul routes. Check transfer traffic % at FRA and MUC.
3. In COVID times long-haul (transfer) traffic is hardest hit, so LH suffers more, and has two hubs, while BA, AF/KL suffer less in stronger O&D markets. BA + AF/KL can concentrate traffic better.
4. In COVID times some European countries are less restrictive and see traffic just 50% below last year. This European traffic is mainly carried by the transfer hubs of AF/KL and Wizz, Ryanair and other LCCs.
5. 2020 traffic data indicate that CDG & AMS are now Europe's busiest airports. This is because AF/KL maintain their transfer hubs supported by larger O&D demand, than either FRA or MUC.
6. Compare the frequency of LH with KL (in particular) and you will note: LH FRA-BLL 2x daily vs AMS-BLL 4x daily; LH FRA-CPH 2x daily vs KL AMS-CPH 5x daily. This indicates single hub efficiency.

These are pure network management points, which is ofcourse quite separate from the entire state support/funding/cost cutting side of the story.

Time will tell, if each airline's network strategy pays off.

factsonly wrote:

Ronaldo747 wrote:

Another big difference between LH mainline and IAG / AFKLM single mainlines is that LH have to deal with multiple hubs.

Precisely, these are LH weak points in times of crisis:

1. Being profitable on long-haul, but not on shorthaul pre-COVID. KLM was profitable on both long-haul and short-haul, BA profitable on long-haul, and short-haul LHR. AF only long-haul.
2. Compared to LHR, CDG and even AMS, both FRA and MUC have lower O&D demand. LH was a particularly strong transfer operator on long-haul routes. Check transfer traffic % at FRA and MUC.
3. In COVID times long-haul (transfer) traffic is hardest hit, so LH suffers more, and has two hubs, while BA, AF/KL suffer less in stronger O&D markets. BA + AF/KL can concentrate traffic better.
4. In COVID times some European countries are less restrictive and see traffic just 50% below last year. This European traffic is mainly carried by the transfer hubs of AF/KL and Wizz, Ryanair and other LCCs.
5. 2020 traffic data indicate that CDG & AMS are now Europe's busiest airports. This is because AF/KL maintain their transfer hubs supported by larger O&D demand, than either FRA or MUC.
6. Compare the frequency of LH with KL (in particular) and you will note: LH FRA-BLL 2x daily vs AMS-BLL 4x daily; LH FRA-CPH 2x daily vs KL AMS-CPH 5x daily. This indicates single hub efficiency.

These are pure network management points, which is ofcourse quite separate from the entire state support/funding/cost cutting side of the story.

Time will tell, if each airline's network strategy pays off.

So the question is: will LH management fundamentally change their strategy so they can make short haul profitable? Or will they stubbornly stick with long haul and hope that international traffic will return to normal before it's too late?