Lufthansa Group to downsize fleet by 100 aircraft

Lufthansa Group will reduce its post-COVID-19 fleet by 100 aircraft from the current 760, Chief Executive Carsten Spohr is expected to announce during a virtual annual general shareholders' meeting set for May 5.

Pre-prepared remarks distributed by the holding did not reveal any further details about the planned cuts save only that all group units will be affected.

"All of the airlines in the Lufthansa Group will be downsized. Older, less environmentally friendly aircraft will be phased out of the fleet earlier than originally planned," Spohr added.

He said that Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) will "temporarily decommission" all seventeen A340-600s. Ten A320-200s will be retired by Eurowings (EW, Düsseldorf Int'l), while "the ongoing restructuring programmes at Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) and Brussels Airlines (SN, Brussels National) will be intensified. Both airlines will also reduce the size of their fleet within this context."

Earlier in April, Lufthansa announced the retirement of six A380-800s, seven A340-600s, five B747-400s, and eleven A320-200s, although the total number was far below the new target of 100 aircraft.

Spohr also announced a further restructuring of the group's Air Operators' Certificates (AOCs), on top of the previously confirmed closure of germanwings (4U, Cologne/Bonn) within the next two years.

"In the future, we will be flying with a maximum of 10 airlines. We will continue to bundle and expand our tourism segment when the restart comes. We were already doing so before the crisis and there will be a greater increase in demand here than for business travel after the crisis. Within the framework of this process, we will be merging the four airlines that have been operating our Eurowings long-haul routes into a single new tourist airline," Spohr said.

Lufthansa Group currently operates passenger airlines: Lufthansa, Lufthansa CityLine, Austrian Airlines, Swiss (which owns Edelweiss Air), Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, germanwings, Eurowings Europe, and Air Dolomiti. It is also a 50% joint venture partner in SunExpress and its subsidiary SunExpress Deutschland. The group also owns Lufthansa Cargo and is a 50% shareholder in AeroLogic.

ch aviation
Photo: hsckcwong, LAX, USA