Lufthansa of Germany has started new merge discussion with Scandinavian Airlines mainly because SAS has been performing badly. If that will happen (very likely more than just code share agreement), Lufthansa will have very strong connections to Scandinavian nations (SAS based in Copenhagen Denmark, Oslo Norway and Stockholm Sweden.
Now it is very difficult for middle sides airlines to maintain profitability. What "national flags" can do is to build the strongest possible network. Between hub airports to smaller airports with regional jets (around 100 seats) more frequently and between the hub airport to other region/continent profitable destinations or tourism/business demand routes. Unfortunately, from smaller airports passengers can always fly to much bigger hub airports such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London or Paris and then fly to NYC than transit doing the transit in Copenhagen.
European airlines will be 3 giants: Air France/KLM, British Airways and Lufthansa/SAS. Code share flights between airlines no longer work fine and the industry itself should try to reduce the cost to win strong competitions from budget airlines.
No comments:
Post a Comment