Lufthansa Group has announced the death of its former CE, Wolfgang Mayrhuber. He had stepped down early from his position as supervisory board chairman last year, succeeded by Karl-Ludwig Kley. Lufthansa had not elaborated on Mayrhuber’s decision at the time but, in a statement, it says Mayrhuber passed away Dec 1 following a “serious illness”. Mayrhuber had a long association with the company, having begun his career in the engineering division in Hamburg more than 4 decades ago. He became the chairman of its Lufthansa Technik maintenance operation in 1994 before being promoted to the company’s executive board. Mayrhuber took over as Lufthansa CE in 2003 and oversaw the consolidation of the company with SWISS, Brussels Airlines, and Austrian Airlines. <br/>
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Two Brazilian airlines, Azul and Avianca Brasil, are targets for expansion in the new alliance between United Continental, Avianca Holdings and Copa Airlines on US-Latin America routes, an Avianca executive said. There was little reference to Brazil, by far Latin America's largest market, when the joint venture was announced Friday, but Avianca Holdings' CFO, Gerardo Grajales, said Monday that the partners already had in mind Azul and Avianca Brasil, which operates independently of Colombia-based Avianca Holdings. "The two airlines complement each other in the Brazilian market," Grajales said. "From the beginning we thought that Brazil should be covered by our agreement. However, no partnership would be authorized if it did not have an Open Skies agreement." <br/>
United Airlines is rolling out a new class of service for travellers looking for something in between the two extremes on some of its longest international flights. United started selling seats in so-called premium economy class Monday. Travellers willing to pay what can be more than the regular coach class fare will get have bigger seats with deeper reclines than those in regular economy, amenity kits, free alcoholic beverages and noise-reducing headphones, among other perks. Other airlines around the world, including United's closest competitors at home, already offer a version of premium economy and are in the process of expanding it to more aircraft. It is part of airlines' efforts to slice their cabins into new sections to encourage passengers to pay higher fares to avoid the skimpiest services. <br/>
The govt has come up with a plan to pay down some debt at financially strapped Air India -- auction off a ground services subsidiary to the private sector. Air India, saddled with INR500b (US$7.1b) of debt, has long been a burden to govt budget-makers, who throw it lifelines worth several tens of billions of rupees a year. The subsidiary, Air India Air Transport Services, remains profitable. India's govt last spring thought it had come up with a final solution for its troubled carrier -- auctioning off the entire Air India group. But no bidders stepped forward. Some companies, however, expressed an interest in acquiring the profitable ground support unit. Nov 28, local newspapers reported that a govt panel had decided to approve the plan to sell off the unit. <br/>