Lufthansa Chair: collaboration with SWISS key to airline success

Lufthansa CEO: Swiss will not go it alone Keystone-SDA

For Johannes Teyssen, Chairman of the Lufthansa Supervisory Board, the future of Swiss International Airlines (SWISS) lies in collaboration within the Lufthansa Group, he said in a newspaper interview.

“If we spend our time discussing how the various brands under the Lufthansa umbrella differ from one another, we are on the wrong track,” he said in an interview with the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung on Wednesday.

SWISS is independent, but also part of a group. “There’s no other way. Or do you know of any other airline in Europe or North America with a good hundred aircraft that can survive on its own?” Flying, he explained, is simply a business of economies of scale. For the future, there is “only cooperation, not an either/or situation”. Anything else is mere nostalgia.

He does understand the concerns in Switzerland about SWISS, however. “But sometimes they strike me as phantom pains that you still feel years after an amputation – rather than focusing on how we can improve together in the future.”

‘Tackling weaknesses’

His most important task, he said, is to ensure that Central Europe continues to have a large, efficient airline in Lufthansa. “We have seen during the financial crisis and the Covid-19 crisis just how dangerous it is when international players suddenly drop out. We must be capable of operating core infrastructure ourselves – whether in finance, energy or, indeed, logistics.” Europe must not allow itself to become dependent on the Chinese, the Americans or others.

The entire group must return to a position of strength, said Teyssen when asked about the fact that SWISS is Lufthansa’s cash cow, while other airlines such as Austrian, Brussels Airlines or the core Lufthansa brand are making little profit or even incurring losses. He wants to “tackle” the weak spots.

However, it was still too early to announce any specific measures. “The group is enormously complex. It has over 100,000 employees and is responsible for 3,000 flights a day. It hasn’t just turned 100 because it’s incapable of anything. I approach my task with great respect.”

Teyssen has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Lufthansa in Germany since May.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.