Deutsche Lufthansa has seen strike-related costs balloon to E250m since the start of the year after a series of walk-offs by workers drove away prospective passengers and put aircraft out of position. Speaking in an interview in an internal employee memo, CFO Remco Steenbergen said Lufthansa blamed unstable crew rostering and aircraft scheduling that have disrupted operations, including the cancellation of the highly profitable Frankfurt-San Francisco service for a full week. In addition, customers are more cautious with bookings and are dodging Frankfurt and Munich as transfer hubs to avoid being caught up in the waves of strikes that have washed over Lufthansa for weeks, he said. “We really want to offer our customers more reliability again – and quickly, too,” Steenbergen was cited as saying in the memo, which was obtained by Bloomberg. “So we simply can’t afford to have these industrial disputes waged at the expense of our customers, or see new wage deals concluded at the expense of our long-term competitiveness.” The latest financial fallout cited by the CFO exceeds the E100m figure that Steenbergen disclosed at the airline’s earnings press conference earlier this month. The carrier has been in on-and-off conflicts with labor unions over pay, and the two sides have called in a mediator to end the disruptions, particularity as the busy travel Easter travel season beckons. The chaos at Lufthansa have been exacerbated by protests at Deutsche Bahn AG, the German national railway, complicating travel in Europe’s largest economy. Steenbergen has announced his decision to leave the carrier, and will become finance chief at chemicals maker Sandoz AG later this year. The move was part of a broader shakeup of the management board at Europe’s largest airline group. <br/>
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Lufthansa wants to close a deal with Italy's ITA Airways "as soon as possible," Lufthansa's CE told journalists on Wednesday, adding that he was optimistic ahead of an expected statement of objections from the European Commission on the deal.<br/>The EC opened a full-scale investigation into the deal in January on concerns that the acquisition could reduce competition in passenger air transport services on several short-haul and long-haul routes and is set to publish a statement of objections to the deal this month. <br/>
South Africa’s troubled state-owned airline is seeking a new strategic partner to provide fresh capital, after the latest attempt to secure a deal with a private investor collapsed last week. SAA CE John Lamola said that a global “strategic or equity partner” would ideally be followed by a listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. He added that the carrier last year made its first profit since 2011. “You can’t have an airline run entirely by the government. The best scenario would be to list SAA on the stock market, in which the South African government would still have a ‘golden share’ to ensure the country’s strategic economic interests are protected,” he said. The government reached an agreement in principle in 2021 to sell a 51 per cent stake to the Takatso Consortium — a private grouping led by pan-African infrastructure company Harith. But the deal unravelled last week after disagreements on price and political opposition to privatisation from within the governing African National Congress. SAA has received R50.7b ($2.7b) in bailouts over the past 16 years and has a history of political interference that has led to much boardroom upheaval. However, unpublished accounts for the year to March 2023, now being audited, show that SAA turned its first profit in more than a decade, Lamola said. “Some will say this is a modest profit but, given where SAA is coming from, I wouldn’t say this is a modest achievement at all.” The carrier wants fresh capital to fund an expansion that would reverse its decline amid the financial troubles of the past decade. Lamola, who has been interim CE since May 2022, said some private ownership was still vital to allow the 90-year-old airline to revive its goal of becoming a “global brand”. A listing would bind the airline to a higher level of accountability, he said. <br/>
India’s airline industry is growing so fast that the country could support at least one other international hub beyond Mumbai and Delhi, Campbell Wilson, the CEO of Air India, said. “India can be home to at least three hubs and plenty of point-to-point services,” Wilson said at an industry event in Gurugram on Wednesday. “There aren’t many other markets like India in the world. Northern India has a good east to west flow, while southern India can offer an Asia to Africa or Australia-Europe flow.” Air India last year signed one of the largest-ever jet purchases in aviation history, ordering 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. The world’s most-populous nation is characterized by a booming consumer class and economic growth that could transform it into one of the world’s largest travel markets. Along with market leader IndiGo and upstart Akasa, carriers in India have ordered more than 1,100 aircraft and some $12 billion is being plowed into building more than 72 new airports by 2025. Air India has taken delivery of one new aircraft every six days over the past six months and will continue to receive the same over the next 12 months. This month, it’s received 11 new Boeing 777s, three Airbus A350s and about 15 Boeing 737 Maxs, Wilson said. He added that the retrofitting of existing widebodies should be complete by the end of 2025 or 2026. “At the time of privatization, Air India had 43 wide-body aircraft for a population of 1.3b,” he said. “Singapore had 150 wide-body aircraft, Dubai had 250. That gives you a sense of how grossly underserved the Indian market was by Indian airlines.” <br/>