Lufthansa plans to capitalize on strong demand in its core U.S. markets by expanding transatlantic flights and promoting its new premium seats, CEO Carsten Spohr told Reuters.
“We’ve managed to shift our sales points, with nearly 60% now coming from the US and only 40% from Europe, whereas for many years the opposite was true,” he said in an interview at Lufthansa’s Frankfurt offices.
According to Mr. Spohr, a large part of the expansion in the US came from smaller cities, unlike hubs like New York.
Lufthansa, for example, will increase its flights from Frankfurt to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina to daily flights next year, from three per week, and will expand its flights from Frankfurt to St. Louis, Missouri to five flights per week, from three.
“This shows the strength of the US market and the interest in flights with European airlines to Europe,” Mr. Spohr, citing growing business ties, including Bayer’s offices in St. Louis and with automakers in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Lufthansa recently unveiled the new Allegris seat, which, according to Spohr, could allow for double-digit increases in revenue for its premium product.
“The introduction of Allegris to Lufthansa … will allow us to take advantage of this focus on premium traffic,” said Mr. Spohr.
Lufthansa plans to increase capacity on key long-haul international routes next year, as it expects to take delivery of a new wide-body aircraft every two weeks.
Mr. Spohr hopes that these new aircraft will help boost development, which has been hindered in recent years by delays in deliveries from aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.
Delays have contributed to the losses of the main German airline, and as a result, its stock price lags behind its competitors Air France-KLM and British Airways, owner of IAG.
The CEO of Lufthansa said that he expects demand in the industry to remain stable and ticket prices to remain stable or increase further, given the supply constraints.
“I’ll assume that prices will remain stable, at least, because we see that the very healthy demand environment worldwide, in almost all our markets, is facing somewhat limited supply due to delays in aircraft deliveries,” he said.
