Lufthansa Summer Based On Weaker Biz Demand
Darren Shannon darren_shannon@aviationweek.com 
Lufthansa is adding an economy cabin to two of its three Business Jet aircraft and is expanding the coach section of its 30-strong Boeing 747-400 fleet in an attempt to mitigate an anticipated shift in summer demand.
The German carrier's summer schedule effectively declines 0.5% compared to the same season in 2008. However, the continued growth of the recently launched Lufthansa Italia operations at Milan's Malpensa airport will boost capacity for all Lufthansa Group passenger operations 0.6% year-on-year.
Without the new Italia services, Lufthansa this summer will serve 206 destinations in 78 countries. The carrier's 2008 summer schedule, which operates from the end of March to late October, included 207 destinations in 81 countries.
"We will continue to maintain our presence in all of the traffic areas and regions despite the weaker demand and the resulting capacity reduction," said Lufthansa Executive VP Marketing and Sales Thierry Antinori.
"[W]e are deploying smaller aircraft in some areas and replacing nonstop flights with connecting flights in other areas, in order to continue to be able to provide our customers with a global network. At the same time, our portfolio is growing in important markets like Italy with the new Lufthansa Italia offer, with new destinations in certain growth markets in Eastern Europe and with additional connections in the Middle East and Europe."
Italia's growth will include the addition of two Airbus A319s to its six-strong fleet.
A small but significant part of Lufthansa's redeployment is the introduction of a 60-seat economy class cabin to two of the three Lufthansa Business jet aircraft operated under contract by PrivatAir. Because of this change, PrivatAir will exchange two all-business class Boeing 737s for two 737s with 32 lie-flat seats in business and the new 60-seat, three-by-three configured coach class.
A third aircraft--an Airbus A319--also wet leased by the German airline under its Business Jet contract, will retain its all-business cabin, according to a Lufthansa spokesman.
Along with the reconfiguration, Lufthansa is also reassigning the two Business Jet 737s to new markets: both are based at the carrier's Frankfurt hub and will serve Bahrain and the Saudi Arabian port city of Dammam. "This new configuration allows us to service demand on routes not ideally suited to the previous configuration," the Lufthansa spokesman told AviationWeek, adding, "We need to provide more choice."
The new configuration does not, however, change the strategic plan for Lufthansa's Business Jet operations, which has been used to open new markets and eventually up-gauge to mainline service. The new configuration will be introduced late in the summer.
This summer will also see a temporary revision to cabins across Lufthansa's fleet of 30 747-400s. Under this program, the widebodies will lose 14 seats from the current 80-seat business class and expand the economy class to 270 seats from the current 234-passenger configuration. The 16-seat first-class will be unaffected.
With this new configuration and proposed frequency changes, Lufthansa's intercontinental capacity will fall 0.7% year-on-year.
At the same time, the carrier's European capacity will fall 2.2% compared to the same period last year, although Italia's growth produces a consolidated growth of 1.5%.
In addition to the new routes planned for Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, further network growth is planned through new codeshares with Brussels Airlines and TAM.
Photo credit: Lufthansa
