EBACE Show News - May 20, 2008 - (Page 50) EBACE 2008 Lufthansa ‘Launches’ Private Jet in Two Weeks Lufthansa will become the first major airline to own and operate its own fleet of business jets when Lufthansa Private Jet kicks off its next phase on June 1. Its main activity will be pointto-point charter throughout Europe with a fleet of seven Citations and into Russia with two Canadair CRJ200s converted to Challenger 850 configuration. Launched two years ago to carry Lufthansa’s first-class passengers from its airline hubs to their final destination, the airline soon found that what 70% of customers wanted most was point-topoint charter. At which point its provider, NetJets, bailed out, not wanting to help the airline’s service become a competitor in building a charter business that had become busier than expected and was no longer based at just one or two German hubs. Lufthansa has continued its Private Jet service with lift from DC Aviation, but even they are running out of capacity as demand from Lufthansa’s passengers continues to grow. “The answer was to buy and operate our own fleet of jets,” sets Gerald Wissel, global head of Lufthansa Private Jet and special products. “After all, the airline is very experienced at flying from A to B, maintaining aircraft and filling them with passengers. It’s what we do.” The first impulse was to buy used aircraft to ramp up quickly, but that didn’t fit with Lufthansa’s First Class image “and besides, we wanted maximum fleet commonality in types and equipment,” said Wissel. Two Cessna CJ1s that Lufthansa uses for training will be available to Private Jet, and Lufthansa’s fleet purchasing department signed up with Cessna for two sixpassenger CJ3s and two seven-passenger XLS+ aircraft, making it the first commercial operator of the latter type in Europe (the first to be delivered is on display here at EBACE). brought up to strength during the year, and two CRJ200s will be transferred from Lufthansa’s network to Lufthansa Technik for completion as 12-passenger business jets. Meanwhile, the Private Jet service is provided by DC Aviation’s fleet. Demand for Lufthansa Private Jet service jumped 40% last year, with 10 flights a day not being uncommon and some days hitting 15 missions. “At times we could have Lufthansa Private Jets will have their own livery. All the aircraft, including the Challenger 850s, will operate under the AOC license of Swiss, the airline owned by Lufthansa. They will be put on the Swiss register, and flown by pilots employed by Swiss. Lufthansa will operate a highly computerized operations center to match aircraft with customers and to coordinate extra lift when needed from DC Aviation and another partner yet to be brought on board. Wissel hopes to begin operations on June 1, after Swiss regulatory approval. The fleet will be Lufthansa Targets the Well-Heeled Passenger Lufthansa is investing more than 250 million euros to enhance its First Class facilities, including renovating its “Senator” class lounges, installing first-class interiors in its A380s, and buying and operating a fleet of business jets. “Over the last two years, as we rolled out this investment, we have increased our airline revenues from the premium first-class and business segments by over 20%,” said an airline spokesman. Lufthansa reported a massive 63% increase in operating profits for 2007 to 1.4 billion euros, and a doubling in its net profit to 1.65 billion euros. Quite separately from Lufthansa Private Jet, Lufthansa offers its all-business class Lufthansa Business Jet services on some routes in BBJ and A319 aircraft operated by PrivatAir. A “bankers’ shuttle” flies from Frankfurt to Newark, New Jersey, in a BBJ, departing at 8:15 a.m. and arriving in time for lunch in New York. Helicopter transfer from Newark to Manhattan is an option. A long-range A319LR is currently flying allbusiness class between Munich and Dubai until an A340 takes over that route in October for the winter months. In July, a 48-passenger A319LR will begin service between Frankfurt and Puna, India. Speculation surrounds Lufthansa’s plans for the A319LR when it is taken off the Dubai run. But it is understood that new all-business longhaul routes from Germany are under active Bavarian ducks are wildly popular giveaways at —John Morris consideration. Lufthansa’s luxurious First Class lounge in Munich. done 20 a day had we had the capacity,” said Wissel. In defining the operational concept, Wissel’s team studied the last 1,000 Private Jet flights and estimated that about half were flown empty to position the aircraft. So it decided the aircraft will not have a home base like Munich, Frankfurt or Zurich but will be decentralized. Crews will remain with their aircraft for six days on duty, four days off, and if they have to be replaced, all can travel “within the company” on mainline Lufthansa. “We are not focusing on long-haul flights at all, because we don’t want to cannibalize Lufthansa’s first-class traffic,” said Wissel. “But we are finding that within Europe and Russia many of our customers are Lufthansa customers, and we are just offering them a broader portfolio. Plus we are attracting more premium passengers to Lufthansa with our Private Jet service.” While a number of Private Jet customers are companies that have signed them up on contract, individuals are quickly finding another advantage: The aircraft can be “chartered” simply by buying a ticket through Lufthansa, and this simple transaction replaces often complicated charter agreements with myriad terms and conditions. “The ticket is our contract under European law,” explained Wissel. “In fact, as a passenger you have many more rights with this ‘airline’ ticket than with a charter contract.” Aircraft are not shared, he added. “You don’t buy a ticket for a seat, you buy a ticket for the whole business jet.” This year will be a difficult year of transition, Wissel noted, and the future growth strategy hasn’t yet been determined. “Next year we should have all nine of our aircraft, plus two and maybe three partners, but we really don’t want too many others. We mustn’t dilute the Lufthansa-ness that customers expect,” he said. —John Morris 50 May 20, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
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