Lufthansa to keep on with Score restructuring after 2015
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's Lufthansa will continue with measures to cut costs and drive revenue even after its current restructuring programme, dubbed Score and due to run only until 2015, has ended, its outgoing chief executive said.
"We are looking at what will be done after 2015," Christoph Franz told journalists, just a couple of weeks before he hands over the reins of Germany's largest airline to Carsten Spohr. "Do we have enough plans?"
Lufthansa has identified 4,000 different projects under the current Score programme, which aims to increase operating profit by 1.5 billion euros (1.2 billion pounds) in 2015 when compared with 2011.
Measures range from big structural changes such as expanding its Germanwings low cost carrier to smaller measures suggested by employees, such as allowing customers to bid for business seats on unit Austrian Airlines in an auction process.
Lufthansa also plans to create joint check-in desks for its group airlines outside of their home countries and is working to reduce turnaround times for intercontinental flights. The group wants to cut the amount of time a long-haul jet spends on the ground at airport gates to around 110 minutes from 160 minutes.
"I don't believe we've squeezed all the juice out of the fruit yet," Franz said.
Rather than being dissolved in 2015 as originally planned, the Score project team will be kept in place.
Consultants have said airlines would do better to have constant efforts to improve results, rather than just starting restructuring programmes that run for a limited time and could affect employee motivation.
Franz also highlighted increasing pressure on Lufthansa in short-haul flights from low cost carriers like Ryanair and Easyjet, which are expanding in Germany.
"Our competitors are not resting on their laurels. Right now we're feeling the pressure in certain locations," he said.
Franz also said Lufthansa would be interested in playing a part in market consolidation at some point in the future.
He said the top 3 or 4 carriers in Europe controlled less than 50 percent of the market, while in the United States the top players had a market share of over 80 percent.
"There is nothing planned at the moment though, I want to make that clear," he said.
($1 = 0.7238 Euros)
(Reporting by Victoria Bryan and Peter Maushagen; Editing by Maria Sheahan)
