NA-Flyer

For me, It looks like a different level of management conflict of decision making

gum

Thanks for the great contribution, HTB!

The way Lufty's management is leading their brand is more than a bit indecisive. They can either:

+ Win the minds and hearts of the customers resulting in paying them a premium over the no-frills carriers. Then they could cash in a lots of revenue surplus. (And enabling them to deploy A321 on the routes which don't have 205/200 seats).

The surplus can be cashed in in every class ranging from a 33-34'' Economy Class up to a four seats First Class.

There are lots of successful examples in nearly every industry sector like Apple, Starbucks or the large food manufacturers like Nestlé. ^ Most of you surely know all the business literature about ledaing a brand, being innovative and winning the customers admiration.

+ Or go the Eurowings approach and completely restructure and reinvent the brand. But then the air fares especially for flights on short notice have to go down and not be on the former full service airline level.

If you have a look on the "Karstadt Lebensmittel" approach you see indeed a mixture of two business approaches: A fine vegetables, meat, fish and cold meats offer and a product range identical to Rewe.

At both supermarkets the design and especially the customers surrounding you and the speed of check-out are not the same experience as ALDI & Co.

So I am convinced they have made a kind of "fusion supermarket" between an individual, high class items and stacking up some well-known REWE brands. Their weekly offers are great and sometimes allure customers for panic buying.

On the price front:
The 0,66 Euro Ritter Sport offer is unforgotten. Also have Lufthansa Miles, Payback points or Amex/BA miles on the price tag: You are able to pay with credit card in this store and noone makes a sad, silly or pushing face (like at some discounters when using a girocard).

On the quality front:
The Mango sold last week for 300 % of the street market value of a market stall in the pedestrian zone was really great.

From the outside perspective the main issue seems to be the low buying volume and therefore the need to couple on to a partner company.


Back to Lufty:
The airline has to establish a unique experience. It doesn't make sense to open a new hub (Munich Satellite terminal) with great lounges and than go down to a one class low frills approach.

With the cost base of a flag carrier of the golden age of air travel the more classic, upscale approach seems to be the best way for success. And indeed the positive image impact of First Class dlearly outweighs the square foot occupied.

oliver2002

KJ is almost ready, will enter service on Sep 23 and is expected to operate exclusively on MUC-DEL vv till EOS (Oct 31).

oliver2002

The 'new' A330 C cabin will look as follows:


Internal coding is A33P, analogue to A34P (A340 op by LH with 42C/28E/181Y))

Unterwegs

Even AA - an airline not known for a superior product - has much better seats in their new business class. I don't even want to mention the ME3 carriers.

bevotex

Hello. I recently booked a LH award ticket in business on a 330 from Denver to Munich. They assigned seats 1H and 1K. I can see on available seat maps a 1K in first but there is no such seat as 1H??? The first row in business starts with row 3. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

klausa

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/27586668-post18.html

bevotex

That would be nice if true, however when pulling up the LH seat assignment map it shows a 2-2-2 configuration and not 1-2-1 as in first. Have the first seats been replaced?

KP2006

There is no F on MUC<->DEN. On some days LH is using 3-class 330 with business service in F seats (bookable by HON and SEN) until the conversion of those 330 to 2-class has completed (or this route is served with other aircrafts). 2-class 330 for this route has C seats in rows 1,2,3,4,5,10,11

bevotex

Thanks so much. Didn't know they were converting to all J.

oliver2002

Now D-AIKB, KJ, and KE are done and all based in MUC. KF is next, already in HAM. It takes about 4 weeks to tear out the F cabin ��

LufthansaFlyer

when is one seat showing up in the man-cave of Oliver2002??

chinatraderjmr

One of the rudest comments here on FT is "if you want to fly F, buy F". I actually agree with that statement but FT is usually not the place for it since the whole point of FT IS USING POINTS, UPGRADES, ETC. HOWEVER, if ever there was a thread where that comment is appropriate, this is the one. If LH needs less F from a business standpoint & you absolutely must fly F..........pay for it

SMK77

F cabin can only be sold throughout the year on very few routes and QF has started to be very selective with routes where F is offered. QR is the same. LH is following that now and SQ will follow soon.

From a commercial point, the space in F is bottom line less profitable than C and that's why F is not necessary on all routes.

For prestige reasons, airlines might keep it and the new 4 seat F on AF and SQ seem to limit F to the minimum space necessary.

Kleffen

Does elimination of F have to do with the standard of C seats today?

The fact that you can get a "flat-bed" in C and sleep reasonably well.
Go back 10 years and the C seats were slopes where sleeping was quite a challenge.
For companies, cost is the big focus, so I'd imagine they don't see the need to pay 10-20K euros for F, if they can pay 2-5K euros for C, and their top employees still walk off the plane well rested.
For celebrities and such, the factor of more privacy from the public might be a bigger factor, where they will fly F to avoid all the attention in a more crowded cabin?