LH looks for savings and more revenue > reduces service

[euroflyer]

LH has announced it is about to put more seats in its European short and medium haul fleet by decreasing the seat pitch. Food, which is served in economy on European flights is under investigation as well. However, it should not be scrapped, but less versions should be served (at the moment up to six different versions exist depending on the time of the day and the duration of the flight). See here (in German only, sorry) : http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article52 ... tegie.html and here http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Lufthansa ... 92560.html. By doing so, LH wants to "copy" certain elements of the business model of low cost airlines, as they continue to bite into the business of LH on European routes. LH aims at cutting costs by around 40% in the European point-to-point traffic.

If this becomes true, SN might not have to change the seating in there B737's, it could even serve as a blue-print for the whole of LH

[Ducatibiker]

Service in F has already been reduced: no more Cuvée Rare - replaced by half the price Champagne. The wine list is now extremely poor ! Unacceptable as F/A/P prices of course remain high.

[sn26567]

If this becomes true, SN might not have to change the seating in there B737's, it could even serve as a blue-print for the whole of LH

Yeah, and SN might follow LH's example of putting six seats abreast in the Avros instead of the comfortable five seats.

[regi]

Would they also think to put more seats in the ATR's of the daughter companies?
Boarding a ATR is now already a big hassle. Larger hand luggage is given to ground crew who stow it just behind the cockpit. If you board with a normal size hand trolley within the size restrictions, it is already too big.

Boarding goes slowly, standing in line in the rain and cold wind.

During winter times when everybody wears thick coats and jackets, the seating is already cramped.

I wonder how far they can stretch the nerves of the passengers.

[tolipanebas]

Boarding goes slowly, standing in line in the rain and cold wind.

A small hint:

Nobody is making you step out of the bus and wait your turn outside in the rain when the bus full of pax arrives at the plane; you can just as well let all those in a hurry go first and then when they are in, go in turn, without having to wait on the ramp and under the rain.

For some weird reason I've never understood, I ALWAYS see all pax get off the bus and wait on the ramp....

The 'I want to be on first, even though I have a reserved seat and the plane won't leave without everybody being on board' psychology of a pax is simply amazing....

[Conti764]

Nobody is making you step out of the bus and wait your turn outside in the rain when the bus full of pax arrives at the plane; you can just as well let all those in a hurry go first and then when they are in, go in turn, without having to wait on the ramp and under the rain.

For some weird reason I've never understood, I ALWAYS see all pax get off the bus and wait on the ramp....

The 'I want to be on first, even though I have a reserved seat and the plane won't leave without everybody being on board' psychology of a pax is simply amazing....

Same category: boarding process. From the moment the gate attendant anounces to start boarding, people hurry to wait at the desk. While it is so much easier to just wait 'till most pax are on.

Second, upon arrival. From the moment seatbelt lights go off, people jump up and go through the chaos to get their stuff. While it so much easier to just wait 'till most pax are out.

[Stij]

Boarding goes slowly, standing in line in the rain and cold wind.

A small hint:

Nobody is making you step out of the bus and wait your turn outside in the rain when the bus full of pax arrives at the plane; you can just as well let all those in a hurry go first and then when they are in, go in turn, without having to wait on the ramp and under the rain.

For some weird reason I've never understood, I ALWAYS see all pax get off the bus and wait on the ramp....

The 'I want to be on first, even though I have a reserved seat and the plane won't leave without everybody being on board' psychology of a pax is simply amazing....

100% True, if you don't have any trolley... but on a full friday evening flight inbound for Brussels I prefer to be sure to have a space for my trolley in order to avoid having it stowed below and having to wait for half an hour (or more) in Brussels.

Cheers,

Stij

[Vinnie-Winnie]

Funny isn't it! A lot of companies are implementing measures which look strikingly similar to those taken by Brussels Airlines a couple of years back...

Shows that SN wasn't as wrong as some of us once thought!

[euroflyer]

Would they also think to put more seats in the ATR's of the daughter companies?
Boarding a ATR is now already a big hassle. Larger hand luggage is given to ground crew who stow it just behind the cockpit. If you board with a normal size hand trolley within the size restrictions, it is already too big.

Boarding goes slowly, standing in line in the rain and cold wind.

During winter times when everybody wears thick coats and jackets, the seating is already cramped.

I wonder how far they can stretch the nerves of the passengers.

As they have announced already to phase out many small planes altogether, I am not so sure about the ATR's. They want to put more "bigger" planes (I guess B737, A319 or Embraer 195) on those routes instead of the smaller ones in order to make them profitable. Which might mean as well that those routes which cannot support bigger planes might be stopped altogether ?!

[euroflyer]

If this becomes true, SN might not have to change the seating in there B737's, it could even serve as a blue-print for the whole of LH

Yeah, and SN might follow LH's example of putting six seats abreast in the Avros instead of the comfortable five seats.

That would be a real disaster from a pax point of view. However, so far LX has resisted to this and is still flying with 5 abreast in their Avros, so there is hope. PLUS, SN's Avros are probably due to be phased out in three or four years if it is correct what has been reported here and elsewhere AND their load factor at the moment is not really that high ..., so no urgent need and not much sense I guess to invest into more seats

[euroflyer]

Funny isn't it! A lot of companies are implementing measures which look strikingly similar to those taken by Brussels Airlines a couple of years back...

Shows that SN wasn't as wrong as some of us once thought!

Hm, I cannot fully agree to this: SN stopped business class altogether and replaced it with two levels of economy as they wanted to define themselves as some kind of new generation LCC.

My interpretation of what LH is doing now is more in the direction to

(1) increase the difference between their Economy and Business product on short and medium haul in order to make more people return to Business and to
(2) adjust the costs connected with the current economy product to the lower fares being paid at the moment for those tickets because of the many promotions etcetera. (for example I myself booked all my European LH flights from Jan to Oct this year in inflexible eco booking classes instead of flexible (Y) Eco, which saved our companies travel budget a five-digit sum ... LH would see this the other way round I guess )

[Air Key West]

I think the person behind this move is Christoph Franz who turned around Swiss (from a loss making to a profit making airline). He left Swiss for LH to become the head of a new Lufthansa Passengers division and he may take over as LH CEO when Mayrhuber leaves. In an article in a German newspaper (I don't remember which one) Christoph Franz announced, some months ago, cost saving measures at LH and cost saving measures usually mean, inter alia, reducing services to pax.
In recent years, I had always considered LX to be some kind of sub-LH product (not bad, but not as good as LH). We can expect the same standards to be applied to LH, which have been in place at LX. So, it's probably not going to be bad, but not as good as usual.
And saying that a reduced seat pitch will not reduce pax comfort is, of course, b*ll sh*t, we all know that, even if news seats are installed.
As to catering, apparently the free food and drinks policy will be maintained, but we can expect portions to become smaller.

http://www.eturbonews.com/9149/christop ... tive-board

[regi]

I can understand that catering would be cut because it involves quite some costs: personnel, storage, weight, supply, cleaning.
I know that this remark swims against the current of Ryanair, Easyjet, Airaisa and other LCC's who seem to live of selling stuff on board.
The domestic flights in Germany hardly take longer than an hour. It is difficult on busy planes to fullfil the catering job properly.
Let me make a comparison with rush hour train passengers: you hardlyy see somebody eat his breakfast on the train during a 1 hour trip towards Brussels. But people pick up a snack at the railway station and eat it there. So why not the same mentality with short distance aviation?
Seat pitch is a different story. If you add 1 extra row ( 5 or 6 extra passengers ) to get a higher income by transported passengers, it means you are convinced that those extra seats will be sold. Not just available.
I do agree that the plane will be full on some specific days of the week, some specific moments of the day, some special days for trade fairs , sports, festivals.
But as far as I can remember all my inter european flights - and even beyond in Asia and Africa - during the middle of the day, weekends, holidays, the planes were hardly halfly occupied. Also the low cost carriers.
Therefore it is difficult for me to believe that this effort to reduce seat pitch to earn more money will work.
Nobody seems to think about the fact that the seats have been arranged already to the absolute minimum 5-10-15 years ago when those airplanes were introduced.
In my humble opinion, the saving will have to come from a much more difficult side: personell costs, top heavy middle managment, faster turn arounds, ground services. This means that the burden lands on the shoulders of the personnel by pay reduction, lay offs, more stress.
If you ask me now as a regular short haul LH passenger what I prefer: enough seat pitch or unemployed LH personnel, I honnestly answer: my seat pitch. LH may not forget that I am the customer. I pay the salary. I decide.

[sn26567]

Strange that LH decides such cost cutting measures when arch-rival AF is announcing an improved service!

[BrightCedars]

It is difficult on busy planes to fullfil the catering job properly.

During the last short leg of a SIN-CDG-BRU flight by SQ we got a hot meal served in Economy between CDG and BRU on a B747-400, and it wasn't empty from letting people out in Paris. When there's a will, there a way.

Now I'm not arguying that it is actually needed and that it wouldn't make some sense to cut this kind of service on short flights, just that it's not that much of a problem to put in practice.

[luchtzak]

During the last short leg of a SIN-CDG-BRU flight by SQ we got a hot meal served in Economy between CDG and BRU on a B747-400, and it wasn't empty from letting people out in Paris. When there's a will, there a way.

That 's very surprising as CDG-BRU is only 40 minutes flying

[regi]

But that was part of a long haul flight. It is obvious that passengers get enough food and drink , independently if there was a stop somewhere in between. ( where they were not fed at the airport )
I tried to raise the issue that if you take a short time flight of about 1 hour, you do not really need to have a meal and drink, for free or paid for. You can have it before or after the flight.
Interesting idea is to provide this meal for free at the airport at the departure lounge. This takes away the argument that passengers don't get their free meal. But not more on board.
By the way: I also had a hot meal and drinks being served on an even shorter flight between Abu Dhabi and Bahrain with Gulf Air on a full A-330. Completely useless because we had a 2 hour transfer time at Bahrain.

[euroflyer]

The domestic flights in Germany hardly take longer than an hour.

Food in Eco on domestic flights with LH in Germany has been scrapped years ago (whereas the LCC (?) Air Berlin still serves Snacks here!!). Only free drinks are served. Different story in Business of course. This has lead to the somewhat crazy situation that on a 40-minute FRA-BRU flight with LH you usually get a snack in Eco (some biscuits, peanuts or so), whereas on the 60-minute flight from FRA to TXL you do not get any food in Eco ...

I guess what they might do is to apply the "snack" policy of some biscuits to all European flights in Eco. Today you are still served a small warm meal on for example a FRA-LIS flight at lunch time or in the evening even in Eco.

I fully agree that is is not necessary to serve food on a 60-minute flight in Europe. However, I have to admit sometimes it is nice. For example on an early morning flight it means I do not have to have breakfast at home (so I can sleep some minutes longer ) or on an early evening return flight it means I do arrive home and had some food already. From this point of view the b.flex product is not that bad after all. I always like the small breakfast on early morning b.flex flights with SN ...

But indeed, seat pitch is much more important. I just had a flight with a brand-new LH A321-200 this morning (D-AISZ) and honestly I do not want to imagine the leg room to be smaller. It is just ok today, anything else would feel like a cattle train (or like FR I might say )

[Coppelia]

I'm not sure AF is about to ameliorate the overall onboard service.

Taken from Le Soir, 13/11/2009, sorry, in French

"Chez Air France, il n’y a pas de petits profits

Face à la concurrence des compagnies aériennes low cost, encore plus vive depuis la crise, Air France va réduire la plupart des tarifs de ses moyen-courriers à partir du 1er avril, mais elle va aussi limiter certaines prestations. « Les baisses de prix seront comprises entre 0 et 20 % » affirme-t-on sérieusement chez Air France-KLM. Difficile à vérifier dans le maquis actuel des tarifs du ciel. Par contre ce qui est certain, c’est que, comme d’autres, la compagnie va continuer de rogner sur les « petits plus » offerts aux voyageurs. En classe business, dites adieu au champagne ou au jus d’orange lors de l’accueil. Et en classe éco, adieu au sandwich sur les vols d’une heure et demie ou moins."

[regi]

That French article is just unbelievable: they announce price reductions between 0 and 20%, but are sure to get rid off the goodies.
So that means in reality no price reduction and no snack/drink at all. It almost looks as O'Leary has written it.