Lufthansa has had a strong start to the year for ticket sales, the group's CE said Wednesday, also confirming that 2017 was a record year for the airline in terms of profit. "The booking situation in the first months of this year has been good," Carsten Spohr said. Spohr said the focus this year would be on its premium strategy at Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian airlines, plus rapidly growing budget arm Eurowings to fill the gap left by insolvent Air Berlin. Lufthansa's 2017 core profit target was to earn more than the 2016 record total of E1.75b (US$2.15b). Lufthansa's new dark blue plane livery, unveiled Wednesday, has caused much debate on social media after it was leaked last week, with some calling it boring and mourning the loss of the distinctive yellow colour from the crane logo on the tail of the aircraft. <br/>
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Lufthansa Group would only be interested in taking over Alitalia if the Italian carrier is "restructured". Group CE Carsten Spohr said: "Alitalia is operating in our second-most important market. So Italy remains very interesting to us." He cautions, however, that Lufthansa Group would not commit to a deal for part or all of Alitalia without fundamental changes to the structure of its business. Loss-making Alitalia is currently in administration after employees rejected a rescue package last year. The carrier has long struggled to make meaningful changes to its strategy in the face of trade-union objections. "[The need for restructuring] is why we are not moving at the moment. We are not taking any decisions," says Spohr. <br/>
Lufthansa and Verdi trade union have concluded new long-term collective labour agreements for the approximately 28,000 ground employees of Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik and LSG Sky Chefs in Germany, the largest group of employees within Lufthansa. The new agreement provides for a total wage increase of up to 6%. It has a term of 33 months—from Jan 1, 2018 to Sept 30, 2020—and is subject to committee approval. The deal spells out a 2-step wage increase of 3% on Feb 1, 2018 and a further 3% on May 1, 2019. The second increase depends on the adjusted EBIT margin specific to the business segment, whereby an increase of at least 1.8% is guaranteed, irrespective of the margin achieved. As a result, the new agreement considers the economic development of the Lufthansa Group companies. <br/>
Aegean Airlines, the former island-hopper that’s expanded to replace defunct Olympic Air, plans to order at least 50 new single-aisle jetliners in the next 3 or 4 weeks. Aegean, which has already doubled its fleet since 2013, will choose between the latest Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max narrow-body models, CE Dimitrios Gerogiannis said Wednesday. The aircraft, to be delivered between 2020 and 2024, will replace an aging all-Airbus jet fleet, as well as add capacity for expansion, according to Gerogiannis. Aegean said it’ll probably need 75 planes by 2023, a figure that includes turboprop models to link Athens with domestic locations. While the carrier currently owns only 4 of its Airbus planes, leasing the rest, that proportion may increase with the new fleet, Gerogiannis said. <br/>
The owner of Eurowings, Thorsten Dirks, told workers at Brussels Airlines Wednesday that their company will not become a Belgian carbon copy of Ryanair in the future. Following a special works committee meeting at the airline’s head office, he thus promised that the airline would play a “decisive role” in the future of Eurowings Group, a point supported by his slide presentation to staff during a general meeting. The CE announced that although Brussels is due to become a centre of expertise for long-haul flights, Eurowings will not, for the moment, carry out such flights. Brussels Airlines and the German company will henceforth together create Eurowings Group. It further emerged from his presentation to the staff that the Belgian company is a “key element for our success” as an airline group. <br/>