by Lufthansa Flyer | Feb 2, 2018 | Corporate, Featured, Lufthansa |
LUFTHANSA has unveiled the update to their livery to mark ‘100 years of the Crane’ and quite honestly I must say that I like it!
Certain elements have been removed, but replaced with new and updated features that will really help the LH fleet stand out.
What’s changed:
- Lufthansa has decided to forego the yellow and blue logo that adorns the tail and replaced it with a white logo surrounded by a new, darker and more rich blue that will extend from the tail and follows the tail’s line onto the fuselage.
- The grey belly is also a thing of the past. The planes will now be fully white, except for the blue found in the tail section.
- A minor update to the font as well, but not so much that it looks radically different.
To see how it all comes together, here are a couple of pages from Lufthansa’s inflight magazine that highlight the changes and discusses them in a bit more detail. The only thing I wish that would have been considered was to bring the new blue color onto the engine nacelles to really ‘pop’ the middle of the aircraft.
As you can see below the front of the plan looks fairly identical to the current look except for what LH refers to as a ‘simplified, timeless new typeface’…..which still looks very much as the current version.
Courtesy: Lufthansa Magazin
The rear of the aircraft is where we really see the impact of the new look. Lufthansa has gone with a darker blue for the tail, and as I mentioned earlier, the yellow circle and blue crane have been replaced with a sleeker version of the 100-year old logo. Additionally, the blue now flows onto the fuselage to accentuate the lines of the tail. You’ll also notice that they paint the leading edge of the tail white to further help show off the plane’s geometry. Though by keeping it white, it also prevents paint chips from being too obvious. Take a look at an older Singapore A380’s tail and you’ll see what I mean, the leading edge of the tail takes a lot of abuse!
Courtesy: Lufthansa Magazin
These changes will not be limited to only the aircraft. LH over the coming months will refresh everything to reflect the new look, including stationery, airport signage, media graphics, all the way down to the hangars that are found aboard their aircraft. In fact it will take a few years to get hundreds of aircraft to sport the new look. Each aircraft will be repainted as it goes in for normal ‘heavy’ maintenance.
I think Lufthansa has knocked it out of the ballpark with this new look. Fortunately, they decided to honor the Crane and her 100 years of flying with Lufthansa but they brought her into the 21st century in a beautiful and modern way.
I very much look forward to seeing it in person.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 17, 2017 | Bombardier, Corporate, CS100, CS300, Featured |
In a shocker of an announcement this evening, Airbus and Bombardier announced that Bombardier’s C-Series will be built in Airbus’ Alabama facility.
In a partnership dubbed ‘C-Series Aircraft Limited Partnership’, a second final assembly line for the C-Series operated by Airbus will compliment the existing production taking place in Quebec. Airbus will also market the aircraft on behalf of Bombardier.
In their comments, Airbus stated that it is a perfect combination of their global reach and Bombardier’s cutting edge technology for short and medium haul aircraft. Airbus will have a 50.1% stake in the operation, with Bombardier’s share being approximately 31 percent and Investissement Quebec getting the other 19%.
This comes at an interesting time for Bombardier whose US-based customers (primarily Delta) were facing stiff 300% tariffs for any Bombardier aircraft that they would purchase as a result of a Boeing complaint filed with Washington DC claiming unfair subsidies for Bombardier from the Canadian government.
With this announcement, it appears that everyone including President Trump and his position as it relates to NAFTA along with Bombardier and Airbus will be able to claim victory from their respective perspectives.
Bombardier and Airbus both denied that politics had anything to do with this, but I find that hard to believe especially when you consider the timing of this announcement and how quickly the partnership was assembled.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 16, 2017 | Alitalia, Corporate, Lufthansa |
In what was basically a poorly kept secret until just a few days ago when Carsten Spohr suggested that Lufthansa would be interested in Alitalia, Lufthansa today confirmed it has submitted its proposal.
In it, Lufthansa is offering upwards of 500mm Euro to buy Alitalia out of bankruptcy. The 500mm offer is asking for all of Alitalia’s aircraft, employees and airport slots around the world. However, LH said it would have to let 6,000 of the 12,000 Alitalia employees go should it be successful in acquiring the Italian national carrier.
Will it happen? Most likely not.
Though at first blush the LH offer is compelling and agrees to take on all of Altalia which is something that the Italians want to happen vs. Alitalia being blown up into bits and acquired by multiple suitors, it is expected that the group handling the administration of Alitalia will decline the bid. That has been made obvious by the fact that a November 5, 2017 deadline set by Rome to find a suitor for Alitalia has been extended to April 30, 2018. This extension does not inspire confidence that Lufthansa’s bid is being taken seriously.
I believe the proposal will fall on deaf ears in Rome since it suggests that 6000 Alitalia employees will lose their jobs, and with the Italian Gov’t in control of the sale such a deal would be bad politics considering that Italy itself is in a state of flux with its ruling parties and can ill afford to upset their constituency. The proposal also suggests that short and medium haul routes would be gutted from the timetable.
Speaking of politics, there is no love loss whatsoever between Rome and Berlin thanks to the EU’s (primarily Germany) handling of most things on the continent. The migrant crisis is front and center in Rome and Italy feels it is being asked (unfairly) to bear the burden of Merkel & Company’s failed experiment, but I digress. So it would most likely pain Italy and Italians to see Germany of all countries (or an agent of it) come in to try and rescue Alitalia. As the say goes, “thanks but no thanks”. Italians are a prideful people and this just doesn’t seem like something they will sign off on.
In addition to the Lufthansa offer, EasyJet has also submitted a bid demonstrating its interest. However their bid is asking for only parts of Alitalia and as I mentioned earlier, Rome wants this to be an ‘all or none’ deal. There are also 3 to 4 private equity firms that have expressed interest in Alitalia but their details have not been made very obvious as yet.
While the process of finding a buyer continues, Rome has agreed to throw good money after bad and has announced that it has given Alitalia another 300mm Euro to continue operations. This after the Italian government floated Alitalia a 600mm Euro loan earlier this year to help finance the debacle. I’m sure that Italians are pleased that they’ve spent nearly 1 Billion Euro just this year alone to keep the birds in the air.
Apparently there’s no end in sight to this soap opera…..
