Germanfflyer

I seriously doubt that a lot of tour groups will book this offer - they need a carrier which covers more then CGN to start wirh, fly more than 2 x a week - especially since Fri/ Sat/ Sun are the most preferred travel days for leisure travellers + the price is just not right!

GUWonder

Jeff Skilling of Enron infamy had an HBS MBA and a career at McKinsey, and look where it got him. And he too used to believe that KLM and Lufthansa were as good as it gets in an industry he looked at from time to time. Look where it all ended up for him: the HBS MBA-McKinsey dude assigned to a bed and toilet behind bars; and his favorites no longer the supposed industry leaders he believed they were or at least proposed that they were.

A person may buy a degree, learn to talk a good game and con many people for at least some time, but buying wisdom and good character seems to be another story.

LH management, whatever their background, are far from being infallible -- just like the army of industry consultants and others that make up the chattering classes.

FD1971

Of course, even guys like Jordan missed shots at the buzzer.

The difference between pros and amateurs, so the difference between people with quality degrees and/or tons of experience (like consultants) and the ones yelling from the stands, pros might be wrong one out of ten times and the fans are right one out of ten times.

It is perfectly okay to miss a prediction based on data once or twice, that is part of management, but misses like this cannot be compared with guys on an internet bulletin board with hardly any data, knowledge and/or degree or experience predicting the downturn of LH since 2004.

FD1971

We are not talking about a tour group like the FC Oberursel from the Kreisliga B going to Malle for a weekend to celebrate the end of the season, we are talking about leading tourist corporations like Rewe, Tui or Cook buying seats as part of a package holiday.

There is a reason why CGN has a station with ICE connections and 24 hours operations.

We are not talking about previous decades during which the abovementioned companies bought 100% of the seats, this has become rare, but filling 300 seats twice a week to very popular tourist destinations should not be a problem, if some tour operators buy a certain chunk, you sell some seats directly and spokes already exist as well.

But again, this is not an oil route with a few dozen people booked in full fare J and some technical equipment on the lower deck booked with the highest priority.

GUWonder

Given how "people with quality degrees and/or tons of experience (like consultants)" -- often jumping from one money-burner to another money-burner -- are so often involved with organizations that just get by or flop in rather extraordinarily expensive ways, there is good reason to doubt that having some fancy degrees and insider experience is a perfect recipe for avoiding worse than average performance for the organizations which they are "strengthening". Self-promoting tools performing for their own personal piggy bank is not the same thing as performing for the organizations footing the bill.

dj_jay_smith

They might have an ICE connection, but too few ICE trains stop here. Only about 20 per day.

FD1971

...which is probably more than enough for the average leisure traveler, who does not mind whether he arrives 120 or 150 minutes prior to departure.

Hence, the CGN station is certainly not comparable with FRA, but should be sufficient in helping to do the job for leisure flights.

Let's face it, CGN is a major leisure and cargo airport and DUS has all the business pax. Hence, Garvens has always been the poor kid from next door lacking the really sexy destinations. He was probably the better airport manager in comparison to Schwarz at DUS, but still DUS got all the nice flights and CGN got the Brittania 767 and CO 752 for a year or so.

FD1971

This is a rather pointless discussion.

If you prefer input from amateurs to input from pros, be my guest, but I take a guy from McK, RB or ADL and his data over Uri and his personal observations from the back of the bus any day.

Germanfflyer

LOL exactly WHY on earth would these operators book anything with 4U when they already have exiting contracts at a much better price with the ME3 that are so much more convenient - so they can sell so much more because nobody will travel on a train to CGN when they can fly out of their airport right away....

These tour operators need to cater to their clients needs and flying 2 x a week when there are sooooo many better options will lead to loosing the customers....

FYI the operators are already constantly loosing pax in these destinations because less and less pax are looking for package tours to take them there... people go there on their own and are not dependent on tour operators any more!
The tour operators are looking for better and more convenient ways to convince pax to book with them - rather then making a package of their own. 4U is not offering anything to support that!

Buying anything in chunks is also a thing of the past - you are not up to date - these days tour operators buy these tickets as they sell the seats themselves.....that is why there are less "catalogue operators" and packages get packed daily using who ever has the lowest price....
4U is just not offering anything the market wants or needs these days - that is why this thing will fail!

Germanfflyer

.....

FD1971

You lack a basic understanding of how tour operators work. As pointed out before, I do not see a lot of problems filling 300 seats twice a week ex CGN to very very popolur tourist destinations.

If the effort is worthwhile, if the money should have been invested into taking over Condor is certainly worth another discussion.

Exactly, the market never wanted cheap tickets....

Again, you fail to understand how aviation works.

Selling cheap tickets is not a problem, hence 4U is offering exatcly what the market wants.

If you can cover your costs, maybe even earn a small return is something completely different however.

gum

Just a ^ for this great statement.

Germanfflyer

ROFL

oliver2002

D-AXGA (former BR aircraft) and D-AXGB (former QR) have been painted in EW livery and await retrofit of the cabin in HAM:

http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a330-530.htm

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eigjb/20334978998/

Concerto

And is this horrid 3 class service concept of germanwings going away or are we stuck with it? That snack offered with the Smart fare is so cost saving and mean as to be laughable. I avoid longer duration germanwings flights like the plague but I was wondering if they offer the same rubbish on longer flights.