Lufthansa Group to centralise European network

Lufthansa Group plans future centralised European network Keystone-SDA

Lufthansa Group plans to centralise its network of short and medium-haul flights of its airlines, including Swiss International Air Lines.

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This is part of a Group reorganisation that the airline group has decided on.

Lufthansa is therefore reorganising the company and intends to coordinate more closely with its subsidiaries in future, according to a statement on Friday. The reorganisation will particularly affect the “hub airlines” Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and SWISS. The aim is to strengthen market position and increase efficiency and profitability.

Network management for short and medium-haul routes is to be transferred to the Group headquarters. Previously, only the long-haul network was managed centrally. The Group wants to make faster decisions and better harmonise its offering.

Several areas affected

In addition to network planning, other central Group functions such as technology, finance, human resources and customer loyalty programmes such as “Miles and More” are to be increasingly managed by so-called “Group Function Boards”. Representatives of the airlines and Group management work together on these boards.

The IT functions are also to be brought together under Head of Technology Grazia Vittadini. The changes are to be implemented from January 1.

The increased centralisation had already been announced at the end of August. The Group has now announced the details.

No disempowerment

Responsibility for the actual customer product will remain with the individual airlines themselves. This applies to the in-flight product, catering, lounges in the home markets and the service for passengers.

The management of the respective flight operations remain the responsibility of the individual hub airlines.

SWISS CEO Jens Fehlinger refuted the claim that Zurich would lose competences compared to Frankfurt. “It’s not about making my job superfluous,” he said in an interview with the NZZ last Saturday.

Some decision-making channels within the Lufthansa Group were not clearly enough defined and synergies were not being utilised. “It is also in the interests of Swiss that we reorganise.”

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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