Lufthansa’s long-haul route cuts boost earnings at Frankfurt hub

Lufthansa’s 70-plus long-haul routes from Frankfurt showed a profit this summer after the carrier eliminated weaker destinations including Malaysia, Venezuela and Oman from its network. Those intercontinental services that survived the cull may now all be retained and Lufthansa will explore the possibility of keeping some older wide-body jets to boost capacity even when newer aircraft start to arrive, said Klaus Froese, who runs the German carrier’s main hub operation. “The consolidation of our routes portfolio has led to a very good result in Frankfurt,” Froese said. A positive trend in September bookings that prompted Lufthansa to upgrade its full-year earnings forecast on Oct. 19 has continued, with “things going well” in October, he said. CEO Carsten Spohr has revamped Lufthansa’s long-haul operations in the face of increasing competition from fast-expanding Persian Gulf carriers, especially on eastbound routes. At the same time he has bolstered Asian links via joint venture deals with carriers from Singapore and China, where the company ended flights to Shenyang last month. While Lufthansa has previously said that 25 Airbus Group SE A350 wide-bodies it has on order will replace less efficient A340s, Froese said it’s possible those retirement plans will be reversed. “We can decide with each plane coming in if it will grow our fleet, or if we use it for roll-over,” he said.<br/>