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Lufthansa bullish on Middle East

Airline carried 1.3 million guests from the region for the first time last year

Lufthansa Group is bullish on Middle East growth as it carried 1.3 million guests for the first time from the region in 2013, according to its top executive.

The largest European airline group said its outlook is positive on the 2014-2015 travel season for its business in the Middle East. Lufthansa operates 21 weekly flights from the UAE and more than 140 flights per week from 14 destinations in the region.

“We recorded a growth of more than five per cent compared to previous year and for us its very great results,” Aage Duenhaupt, director of communications, Lufthansa German Airlines for Southeast Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Khaleej Times during an interview.

The largest growth has been generated in the premium segment, especially in First and Business Class. “We see this trend is continuing,” Duenhaupt said. All in all the Lufthansa Group offered flights to more than 104 million passengers in 2013.

In both compartments, Lufthansa has recently introduced new seats and services which have been greatly appreciated by its customers from the Middle East. In one of largest retrofit programmes in the industry, more than 7,000 Business Class seats are being installed on over 100 long-haul aircraft and therefore increasing the new Business Class availability to 100 per cent by summer 2015. The retrofit on First Class has been nearly concluded.

The premium growth in the UAE has been impressive over the last months with more sales potential at the horizon, according to the company.

Duenhaupt mentioned that new highlights to be introduced this year will be Lufthansa’s new Premium Economy Class on all long-haul airplanes. For its new Premium Economy Class, Lufthansa has designed a high-quality seat that offers much greater comfort and up to 50 per cent more room in this class. The quality of food on offer will also be higher than in Economy Class. The use of porcelain tableware in particular will make a noticeable difference.

“Tickets will be available for sale this May, and the first flight is planned for October to Dubai,” he revealed. The first aircraft to feature the new travel class will be the Boeing 747-8. The installation of Premium Economy should be complete by the end of 2015, at which point there will be a total of 3,600 seats in the cabins of the long-haul fleet.

Lufthansa committed itself to invest euro 1million every day till 2015 in better ground and onboard services. New seats in all classes, individual inflight entertainment in Economy Class, innovative First Class and Business Class as well as brand new lounges, will help us define new industry standards and give us advantages over other carriers which fly different products on their route network.” Lufthansa is modernising its long-haul fleet and during the summer timetable alone will be adding six new intercontinental aircraft to the fleet, which are more fuel-efficient and much quieter: Two new Airbus A380 will make it possible to extend the summer service on the routes from Frankfurt to New York (JFK), Beijing and San Francisco. Lufthansa will then operate a total of twelve A380 airliners. The Boeing 747-8 fleet will also see further rapid growth by the autumn, with four new aircraft bringing the total to 14. For the first time passengers will be able to enjoy the comfort of the “Queen of the Skies” also on flights from Frankfurt to São Paulo in Brazil. From this summer the new jumbo jet is even flying twice daily to Los Angeles.

The latest order book from Lufthansa stands at 295 airplanes from the new Bombardier C-Series to the world longest, the Boeing 747-8, and the world largest airplane, the Airbus A380. In total Lufthansa is investing more than €36 billion at list prices till 2025. Recent highlight is the start of the new Boeing 777-9X programme where Lufthansa is the first launch customer which signed a commitment letter, just before the Dubai Airshow 2013. From 2020 34 Boeing 777-9X will join the fleet and purchase rights for another 30 are already agreed. Already in 2016 25 new Airbus A350-900 will be added to the network.