Eurowings cuts long-haul business; full focus on short-haul point-to-point operations

The Lufthansa Group has refined the strategy on Eurowings, the low-cost subsidiary will fully focus on its short-haul network out off Germany and under a sole and German Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). In a turnaround plan, the airline will cut 15% in costs by 2022 in the hope of returning to profit. 

Eurowings’ long-haul network will be assigned to its network airlines: Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and – to a certain extent – to Brussels Airlines: the Belgian airline will separate from Eurowings and will be embedded closely to the other network airlines.

On Sunday 16 June, the Executive Board of the Lufthansa Group revised its financial outlook for the full year 2019 after a disastrous first quarter of 2019: on 1 May, the Lufthansa Group announced a first-quarter Adjusted EBIT to EUR -336 million. At the low-cost subsidiary Eurowings, the first-quarter results were even worse than the previous year:  the Adjusted EBIT declined to EUR ?257 million (prior-year period: EUR -212 million)

Lufthansa said its Eurowings fleet would be standardized on the Airbus A320 family, its fleet size will drop by 10% – by removing 17 Dash 8 aircraft – but the average seat per aircraft will mount from 149 to 167.