African Aviation Blog

Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Lufthansa to cut cost at long-haul business

German flagship airline Deutsche Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) said it needs to cut costs at its profitable long-haul business to cope with rising fuel prices and stiff competition from Gulf carriers.

Lufthansa said in an employee newsletter distributed on Monday that it aims to reduce unit costs at its long-haul business by 10 percent by 2015 and by 20 percent by 2025, compared with 2011.

"Lufthansa is booking increasingly large declines in income on long-haul routes, even on trunk routes such as Beijing of Shanghai," it said.

The new savings project, dubbed SPRINT, is part of a company wide plan to improve annual earnings by 1.5 billion euros ($1.96 billion) by the end of 2014.

Lufthansa has already frozen investments, announced job cuts and is combining its loss-making European short-haul unit with its low-cost carrier Germanwings.

SPRINT will focus on lowering fuel expenses and re-negotiating pricey contracts with suppliers but will also examine possible measures related to infrastructure, crew, fleet planning, cabin layout and ground processes, Lufthansa said.

Reuters

Monday, 3 December 2012

Lufthansa extends inflight broadband services

Lufthansa is continuing to roll out its FlyNet broadband Internet service across its intercontinental network.

From mid-December onwards, satellite coverage for the high-speed FlyNet system will be generally available across Lufthansa’s entire long-haul network, with the exception of China and South Africa.

Two years after the launch of FlyNet, it is now able to offer inflight broadband connectivity on a record 80 aircraft in its long-haul fleet, thus making it the largest broadband Internet-enabled long-haul fleet in the world.

One of the major features of the FlyNet system, now available on most aircraft and preinstalled on the next Boeing 747-8s due for delivery in March, is live sports broadcasting which means passengers can watch live coverage of Formula One races, the NFL Super Bowl, Wimbledon, the French Open tennis tournament, the Ryder Cup, the US Open golf, and many other major sporting events.

Delta To Buy Virgin Atlantic Stake

Delta Air Lines has held talks to buy the 49 percent stake in British carrier Virgin Atlantic that is currently held by Singapore Airlines, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Delta, the second-largest US airline after United Continental, has been looking to acquire a stake in Virgin Atlantic for more than two years in an effort to expand its access to London's Heathrow airport, the sources said.

Previous deal talks broke down over price and other issues, and there is no guarantee that the recent discussions would result in a pact, the people said. News of Delta's interest in Virgin was first reported by the Sunday Times of London.

A cargo plane crashed into houses near Brazzaville Maya-Maya airport while attempting to land in a thunderstorm on Friday, killing at least 32 people, a Congolese Red Cross official said.

"We have already pulled 32 bodies from the crash site, but there could be more victims," the official said, asking not to be named. The official said the dead included six crew members.

The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 cargo plane, operated by local carrier Trans Air Congo was flying from Pointe-Noire, thecommercial capital of the Central African state. It crashed into more than a dozen houses near the airport.

Congo Republic, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and many countries in the region, has one of the world's poorest aviation safety records due to poor maintenance and the use of old planes banned from other skies.

In March 2011, another Soviet-made Antonov cargo plane, operated by the same company, crashed into houses in Pointe-Noire while attempting to land, killing 23.