by Lufthansa Flyer | Jul 17, 2014 | Economy Class, Fare Sale, Featured, Lufthansa |
To celebrate Germany’s victory at the World Cup Lufthansa is running a fare sale specifically to Berlin to mark the occasion. The fare sale runs until August 7 and covers travel into January 2015.
Most fares from the East Coast range in the low $1000 range (Miami – Berlin for $1,119) and move into the $1300-$1400 range from the West Coast. Chicago – Berlin is perhaps the most attractive at $1149 when you factor in distances, ease of hub access, etc.
Terms of the sale are as follows:
Departures must take place between August 24 and October 25, 2014.
Returns must take place between August 31, 2014 and January 25, 2015.
Tickets must be purchased 14 days prior to departure.
Minimum stay is 7 days.
Maximum stay is 3 months.
Keep in mind as you book your trip that flights can be operated by Lufthansa, Austrian, United, Swiss, Brussels or Air Canada. Depending on the carrier who is operating your flight and the frequent flyer program that you credit your miles to, you may or may not earn miles for your trip. If you have any questions about this, please ask and I’ll help you make sure that you maximize the miles you earn for the booking!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jul 16, 2014 | Featured, First Class, Lufthansa |
Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal Twitter team is holding another quiz this week that will award a lucky winner a Lufthansa First Class Duck. The quiz this week is about a historic European town known for its art as well as a 400 year old Pharmacy. Know the answer? Reply to the Lufthansa First Class Terminal Tweet to enter for your chance to win. Contest deadline is 17 July at 10a Central European Time.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jul 10, 2014 | Featured, germanwings, Industry News, Lufthansa, WINGS |
In my last post I touched on the fact that LH is planning to launch two LCC programs over the next year. In that post I talked about the intercontinental version and a potential partnership with Turkish. In this post, I’ll look more closely at what an intra-European LCC may look like.
It’s no secret that the Lufthansa Group is being bombarded by substantial competition from literally dozens of Low Cost Carrier (LCC) airlines in Europe. Rather than being stubborn and attempting to force ‘their will’ on the European airline passenger, LH is looking to adapt and diversify their portfolio in an attempt to deliver options that would be suitable for any passenger. To that end, they have decided to wade into the LCC market place with a large scale rollout.
WINGS is Lufthansa’s answer to the LCC market place and beginning in the Spring of 2015 we’ll begin to see WINGS become reality. As planned, it will be based on the current Germanwings concept that is currently based in Germany. Lufthansa will use and rebrand its Eurowings division and use it as WINGS’ foundation as it builds its hub network and Germanwings will become part of the WINGS network. Plans call for WINGS to be positioned in each of Lufthansa Group’s main European hubs including Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Brussels and Zurich and will compliment the LH mainline airlines operating out of these hubs.
The first WINGS hub is planned to open at Basel Airport in Switzerland and begin operations in Spring 2015 with 2-4 A320 aircraft based there.
To accomplish this undertaking several changes will take place in the Germanwings and Eurowings fleets. To meet expected demand, Germanwings will have up to another 60 Airbus narrow body aircraft added to fleet. For Eurowings, their fleet of Bombardier CRJ aircraft will be replaced by Airbus A320 aircraft and may grow to a fleet as large as 23 planes. The move to replace the CRJs is due largely to the fact that Lufthansa has considerable cost and operating efficiencies.
We will no doubt see WINGS become a bigger and bigger part of Lufthansa’s vernacular over the next year as we get closer to the rollout. Hopefully this solution will finally be the answer LH has been looking for when dealing with the LCC marketplace.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jul 10, 2014 | Featured, Industry News, Lufthansa |
Lufthansa has announced that it intends to launch a new inter-continental and intra-European ‘Low Cost Carrier’ airline designed to attract additional passengers.
The new model, WINGS, will be focused on attracting the budget-minded traveler who typically purchase tickets based on price, not worrying about loyalty programs, on board amenities, etc. Initial plans call for WINGS being a multi-tier program based on the Germanwings model.
As far as the long haul elements of WINGS, Lufthansa is currently studying 2 options and will decide in the near future which route it will take.
Option 1 would have Lufthansa going alone at the endeavor and potentially retrofit several of its existing long-haul aircraft into 1 or 2 class configurations. Option 2 has Lufthansa teaming up with another airline an act as partners in the new airline. At the moment, Lufthansa is in advanced discussions with TURKISH AIRLINES and the 2 sides are trying to determine if such a venture makes sense for both sides.
If an agreement is reached with TURKISH, expect to see a fleet of 767 and A330 aircraft begin to enter service for the Winter 2015/16 timetable. Initial plans call for up to 7 aircraft to make up the new intercontinental fleet.
Additionally, Lufthansa is facing a decision as to what to do with 9 of its A340 aircraft. LH is looking at ways to put these aircraft to work on underperforming routes or to launch new routes in a manner that aligns with the WINGS Low Cost Carrier model. No decision have been as of yet as LH is considering internal and external partnership options.
Lufthansa’s decision to go in this direction is in direct response to the tremendous pressure they face from Low Cost Carriers (LCC) that are prevalent in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. LCC Passengers are looking for the lowest possible price points for their travels and apparently are not concerned with amenities and other benefits that come with flying with a ‘Mainline Carrier’.
I see this as a bit of an experiment taken on by LH to determine if there is viability in long-haul LCC operations. Only a small handful of airlines operate long haul LCC routes so the success/fail rate has not been established enough to identify trends.
After reading through Lufthansa’s release yesterday, I got the sense that the attitude that they are adopting is “ACT, OR BE ACTED UPON”. In such a competitive industry, its absolutely the right vision to have. But the success will obviously depend on the execution.
I’ll update you on what the WINGS concept will look like within Europe in another post later today. I spent most of yesterday helping several family members plan flights today to Slovakia to attend my Grandmother’s funeral (99 years old and had the chance to watch her beloved Brazilian soccer team one last time) and did not have much time to interpret all of the information that Lufthansa released yesterday. At the moment, I’m enroute to Vienna so I’ll try to find a window later today to provide the update.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jul 10, 2014 | Contests, Featured, First Class, Lufthansa |
No, I am not giving away my little green friend…..however Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal Twitter team is!
Lufthansa’s FCT Twitter team is running a very easy contest that will give away one of their very rare and limited 2014 World Cup Ducks.
All you have to do is to follow Lufthansa FCT on twitter (@Lufthansa_FCT) and retweet the tweet you see below. That’s it. Easy Peasy!
You have until 10:00am CEST on July 11, 2014 to enter!
The terms and conditions can be found here.
