Ouch Lufthansa, new business class cabins will arrive (maybe) in 2024
It is incredible what is happening at Lufthansa. While the accounts are going very well and it is waiting [...]
Lufthansa
Star Alliance
It's amazing what's going on in the Lufthansa household.. While the accounts are doing just fine and the green light is awaited from Brussels for ITA Airways to enter the share capital of ITA Airways, the same cannot be said of LH's fleet cabin renewal plans.
The quarterly data
In this article:
Lufthansa, Austrian and Swiss queues.
At 9.4 billion euros, Group revenues in the second quarter exceeded the previous year's value by about 17%. Operating income (adjusted EBIT) increased to 1.1 billion euros and thus nearly tripled (previous year: 392 million euros).
This corresponds to an operating margin of 11.6% and is a new record for the Lufthansa Group's second quarter result. Net income also marked a new high of 881 million euros (previous year: 259 million euros).
Sale side of ITA Airways the green light from European supervisory bodies is expected by the end of 2023, while those from the rest of the world should also arrive and thus arrive at the German group's purchase of 41% of the Italian flag carrier's capital.
Allegris on the high seas
The story of these new booths will, most likely, be told in a film. Conceived in 2017, it was to debut in 2020. But then things did not go as planned and the debut was postponed. At the beginning of this year Lufthansa again unveiled the new cabins, with minor updates from those anticipated in 2017, announcing a debut by the end of the year on new aircraft being delivered and installation on the current fleet starting in late 2024.
At the presentation LH had also suffered mockery from Qatar's CEO who literally mocked the company for its tardiness and new product design. "I'm looking forward to flying there, to count the flaws," Al Baker had stated.
We were also among the lucky few to be able to to touch the new products, to sit in the new booths of business and in the new first-class bridal suite. Too bad, however, that things, not even a month later, have gotten worse, by a lot, and LH's plans have officially blown up.
The first leak spoke of the impossibility of installing First Class cabins on board the new A350s, the initial assumption was that the carrier would fly the new aircraft, without seats First-class, waiting to receive the product, But things are even worse.
Come written by the German site in the lines of the half-yearly report it appears that LH has no idea if and when the new cabins will go into service, certainly not as planned i.e. by the end of 2023.
The delivery date for the first plane with the new cabins installed thus slips to spring 2024, but there is also no certainty that this date will actually be met.
Even bigger problem
Lufthansa's business class on the 747/800
It's not just image damage, But an issue of future and investment. By LH's own admission, the installation of cabins on the current fleet is expected to take no less than 5 years, this means that in 2030 LH will (perhaps) find that the new seats installed, but designed in 2017, while the other carriers will instead have much more modern and functional seats.
What I cannot understand is how such clumsy management by a giant like the Lufthansa Group is possible, not to mention that the new premium economy, Is a small evolution of the current EP present on Swiss And installed on time and on schedule.
