Flanker wrote:those 25% will go into the Lufthana Technics account, and be used for logistical purposes. This was a good reason for SN to waste extra money in the chocolates they serve with their cheap-looking print on it, because even the Avro's burn too much fuel to make Davignon happy enoguh to buy Virgin from Branson.
The 5% that you talk about is thus rubbish, we all know that Davignon didn't steal it and put it into his pocket!
I can't believe you said that! Or do you know something that we don't know? 5% isn't much but in an industry where most airlines never acieve 7% net margin, 5% is important.
I am sorry, but I am not following you... try to sort your thoughts first, please.
Flanker wrote:Why do you think that LH should open an African hub in HAM?
(...)Are you saying that Flybe got a better deal than Lufthansa from Bombardier?
(...)why doesn't OS operate to Stuttgart anymore?
(..) Why do you think that the wetlease is a bad deal?
(..)Do you have proof that it's bad deal and how do you know this?
Now that's a lot of unrelated questions which have nothing to do with your initial accusation of Lufthansa somehow trying to milk Brussels Airlines, if I may say so. You're not suddenly trying to quickly push this discussion in a completely different direction by creating confusion, do you?
I think you brought up a very interesting issue there, definitely worth of discussing, even though it doesn't seem to hold any grounds when we start looking at it more closely. However, that shouldn't be reason to suddenly drop it, does it? This discussion can be just as interesting, even if it proofs you completely wrong, you know?
So, let's come back to your accusation of mallicious practices by Lufthansa by looking at the figures you've quoted.
As we've clearly determined beyond any doubt: you don't know what type of services are ment and neither do I, so we can only guess. It's a safe bet however to say catering will definitely make up a large part of it. In this respect, it is interesting to note how B.air has been using the same caterer ever since it was launched. Now, sadly I don't know how much the catering contract is worth (maybe you can provide us factual data, flanker?), but let's just say it represents several tens of millions, millions which were already flowing in the direction of Lufthansa well before the take-over...
The remainder of the services rendered are probably linked to maintenance and ticketting and may very well have increased substantially in value after B.Air became partly owned by Lufthansa, yet as you say yourself, a 5% margin is already a big thing in this industry, so a 5% margin on roughly 30M of additional rendered services, is 6M. Such is the potential 'profit' Lufthansa may have made on services it got contracted from Brussels Airlines.
Provided those services are indeed rendered (and thus not completely fictitious) and had to be sourced from somewhere anway, the worst case scenario is one where Lufthansa overcharged Brussels Airlines.
it's hard to put a figure on the potential overcharge, but let's say they overcharged by 20%: that thus makes a full million of additional profit then, or if you want a full milion 'stolen' from B.Air.
At this pace, the Germans need another 60 years to recover their initial investment in the Belgian carrier!
And mind you, just as I pointed out, there's no proof of Brussels Airlines deliberatey being forced to source from a Lufthansa affiliates at all cost, nor have I seen any proof of an affiliate selected being far more expensive than any other bidder: I've been able to show you a clear example of a case where Brussels Airlines sourced from a third party (i.e. flybe) even, so even that one million in potentially malliciously earned money is highly doubtful indeed.
So, once again, and unless you can provide us with compelling proof to the contrary, you've failed to make your case, I am afraid, but thank you for digging up those figures from the annual report: at least we now know there's no second Swissair scenario playing in the background as the potential cash drain -even in the absolute worst case scenario- is so ridiculously small, it just doesn't make any sense.
