Lufthansa Group’s Supervisory Board has voted to approve the acquisition of the remain share of Brussels Airlines that it previously did not own, making ‘SN’ a fully owned by the Airline Group. Up until today, Lufthansa Group had owned only 45% of SN. This decision was fully expected.
The deal is expected to be closed by the beginning of 2017.
What happens from here with Brussels remains interesting. One leading idea floating around Lufthansa Group is a plan to meld Brussels into the Eurowings LCC division to bolster EW’s position among LCC carriers in Europe. With Brussel’s 51 aircraft, most of which are short to medium haul specialists, it would seem to be the likely scenario now that LH controls all of Brussels. I
in addition to the 43 short and medium haul aircraft in Brussels’ hangar, they also operate 8 A330 aircraft which would be critically important to EW as plans exist to expand EW’s long haul network next year.
BUT…..
What may change this original plan was the recent news announcing Lufthansa will wet least 40 aircraft from Air Berlin and take over a substantial portion of Air Berlin’s routes in Europe that do not involve AB’s hubs in Dusseldorf and Berlin.
IF both plans come to fruition, we may see Eurowings go from a small LCC with only 34 aircraft and turn into a European LCC powerhouse with upwards of 125 aircraft in the fleet virtually overnight. This would allow EW to take a realistic run at competitors such as Ryanair and Easyjet and have it happen in fairly short order. Which has been the plan along if you ask anyone at Lufthansa.
