whiskey_sk

A sincere thank you to everyone involved for their time and effort. Interesting recap! ^

demue

+1. Very much appreciated.

N1003U

+2. Thanks for the report.

I have also heard privately from a few who were present this year that the meeting was more interactive and two-way this year, compared to last year's meeting, which, while honest, was, IMHO and experience, structured more as a lecture that a dialogue, telling us what to expect from the LH product rather than looking for input from a customer viewpoint on what might be nice for us as product features.

I take the fact that the meeting took place again, and that there was more (apparently genuine) interest in input from the frequent fliers present, as a positive development.

Thanks also to all those behind the scenes who worked to make the meeting possible. I know it takes a lot of advance communication and coordination with a company like LH to make such events happen.

Furnle

Just to add some more (fast) notes:

They assumed LH has lost a lot of premium traffic to TLV, mainly to BA. They know the reason: the change in the aircraft type (and inherent product). So, they know they have a problem to solve, and that includes CAI, AMM, and some more destines.

Also, they have a plan to reinstall another toilet on the A321. They assume it was a bad decision to remove it.

They also are aware (especially Dr. Bischof) the NEK seats are a problem. They are already studying a new configuration to the short-haul, and are no decisions made, since there are some conflicting points of view regarding that subject. The dominant one is to do the same revamp that Swiss will (the “sardine can”), but other options are on the table.

Wings will be, in fact, a kind of a Norwegian clone. However, in later talk “round the table” with Dr. Bischof, they didn’t seem exactly aware of the huge losses Norwegian is facing with the long haul adventure. If they implement Wings, it will be out of FRA. However, the reconfigured A340 will fly exclusively from FRA.

One thing that one could notice easily is that in some situations that were discussed (like Germanwings, or the Istanbul call center), the cutting cost effect had also consequences on the service and on the consumer satisfaction. Therefore, some things need to be improved (what will mean more costs in the future).

The attitude was different. They recognized some mistakes (the toilet removal on A321, the NEK seat, the introduction of STARS), and that was better than on the previous year. They are facing huge challenges, and they were more open to admit it. For some things that were said during the dialog and after it, they want to be a “five star airline”, but the path to get there is not always clear. There is a lot of internal discussion going on.

If I have the time I will add a few more things later.

Thanks to all the people involved on the organization

Tyrolean

Revenue based Miles? Good way to enhance the system again!

ralfkrippner

Those of us mentioning they would be in favour of a revenue based system all mentioned also that it needs to be fair value and explicitly not what United and Delta did.

I think from what was discussed about medium haul business class they think about introducing a subfleet of 320/321 aircraft with a different biz product and consider a different seat or some changes to the current concept of eco seat with free middle seat.

optibaem

+3

cas_de

Well I think it is basically transactional already. Did you guys talk about the "cost" to qualify for SEN? Since it was requalification year I did track all the costs (including rebooking fees etc.) and the amout that was spent to get to 100k status miles was north of €19k.

Lack

Being againt is on general principle, it doesn't sound so bad with M&M (at least after the recent enhancement to the mileage chart).
300-500 EUR tickets earning 4x125 miles vs at least 5 miles per USD that UA/DL offer? That's at least a quadruple increase and almost 10 fold over if they give as generous elite bonuses.

Similar difference for 700-1000 EUR 25% earning long distance fares.
Heck, even the "P"-unishment fares for 2k EUR might yeild more then 100% right now.

UA/DL rev based seems like a fair value in my book vs what M&M is crediting nowdays.

Can you imagine M&M giving upwards of a 100k miles for a J round trip ticket?

volta

I agree with you on this topic and wouldn't complain about switching 5points per USD spent, although it would be interesting to see how they would reconcile EU vs USD pricing to points.

malmostoso

As every other company in the world does it, 1€ = 1US$

/s

Rambuster

With retail pricing this might be the case, as US prices in USD are without sales tax and European prices include VAT of 20% on average.
On a net net comparisom 1:1 is quite close actually. (depend on exchange rate volatility)

TRAVELSIG

Agree- if including the VAT/IVA which can be as high as 25% in EU- then it would work for retail tickets.

Lack

Since most of LH passenger revenue isn't subject being international, I would expect 1:1 USD/EUR. Kinda doubt LH would miss the opportiniuty for enhacment here and not use 1 EUR as benchmark. Then again, we might have USD-EUR parity soon anyway.

Does LH publish a number of miles issued per yer? Would could quickly compare it to the revenues and I'm fairly certain that we'd end up with much less then 5-11 miles per dollar spent.

TRAVELSIG

I assume now this will be somewhat easier to understand as Miles&More has been spun off as a separate company- so looking at that company annual statements should give you a pretty good idea once they are published.