Eurowings in 2019

[TLspotting]

Eurowings flies North-Rhine Westphalia into the summer holidays from Düsselforf and Cologne/Bonn airports

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/luft ... -airports/

[sn26567]

Eurowings to launch Pristina – Vienna route from 02 November 2019, with A319 based in Pristina.

[JustPlanes]

I read on the main page of this website... HUGE LOSS AT EUROWINGS...
But lets let SN fly their A330s for Eurowings and open every possible route at Eurowings instead of maybe having a couple of those A330s open new routes out of Brussels where there is potential and very little competition....
Lufthansa said you need to make money before we expand and get more planes.... and yet Eurowings is the biggest loser of them all and they keep on putting all their eggs in that basket...

[nordikcam]

If I understand correctly, all EW long-haul traffic will leave in summer 2020 from MUC and FRA to the world .. operated by Sun Express and it will only remain in DUS New York and perhaps another destination operated by SN?

[sn26567]

Carsten Spohr declared last month that Eurowings will phase out all long-haul flights and concentrate on short-haul point-to-point. But not later than today, Lufthansa issues a press release saying that they are strengthening Eurowings long-haul operations this summer and next winter. Where is the coherence? Hello, Carsten Spohr?

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/luft ... ment-67501

[sn26567]

Carsten Spohr declared last month that Eurowings will phase out all long-haul flights and concentrate on short-haul point-to-point. But not later than today, Lufthansa issues a press release saying that they are strengthening Eurowings long-haul operations this summer and next winter. Where is the coherence? Hello, Carsten Spohr?

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/luft ... ment-67501

I just got a response from Lufthansa:

"There will be Eurowings long-haul flights in future - the current reorientation concerns only the internal organisation and commercial responsibility of their long-haul flights. It will be transferred to the Lufthansa Group’s network management."

This is not what I understood from the recent press conference of Carsten Spohr: he said that the long-haul flights of Eurowings would be transferred to the network airlines, but he did not say they would survive as Eurowings flights.

Does somebody have more information?

[theeuropean]

It sounds like they want to save face more than anything. Apparently, Eurowings should continue long haul as a brand, but not fly the routes - whatever that means (seems like what SN/Sunexpress do today). But also from FRA and MUC?! My gut feeling is that there are rumblings in the HQ of LH group. Some want an IAG type structure? Without coming from the top? Something smells fishy if you start digging a little more.

[Passenger]

Carsten Spohr declared last month that Eurowings will phase out all long-haul flights and concentrate on short-haul point-to-point. But not later than today, Lufthansa issues a press release saying that they are strengthening Eurowings long-haul operations this summer and next winter. Where is the coherence? Hello, Carsten Spohr?
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/luft ... ment-67501

I just got a response from Lufthansa:

"There will be Eurowings long-haul flights in future - the current reorientation concerns only the internal organisation and commercial responsibility of their long-haul flights. It will be transferred to the Lufthansa Group’s network management."

This is not what I understood from the recent press conference of Carsten Spohr: he said that the long-haul flights of Eurowings would be transferred to the network airlines, but he did not say they would survive as Eurowings flights.

When Carsten Spohr announced the Eurowings reshuffle, the unbiased German travel & aviation newssite FVW wrote this about Eurowings' long haul flights: "...Carsten Spohr explained that Lufthansa will take over commercial management of Eurowings’ long-haul operations. The subsidiary will continue to operate these flights as it has a lower cost base, but the parent company will be responsible for sales and marketing, as well as network planning..."
https://www.fvw.de/international/travelnews/

[nordikcam]

It sounds like they want to save face more than anything. Apparently, Eurowings should continue long haul as a brand, but not fly the routes - whatever that means (seems like what SN/Sunexpress do today). But also from FRA and MUC?! My gut feeling is that there are rumblings in the HQ of LH group. Some want an IAG type structure? Without coming from the top? Something smells fishy if you start digging a little more.

I share your idea of ​​the LH board's internal differences about what to do with all these companies ... we'll see what's coming out of it and this is a taste of it. Let's keep our fingers crossed for SN ... Maybe another round will be given to CS's decisions.
To return to the article by Bart Noëth, we can conclude that all long-distance traffic from EW will be provided under EW code from FRA and MUC (Detroit, Anchorage, Seattle, Las Vegas, Orlando, Windhoek, Bangkok) but performed by Sun Express while DUS will keep only a few lines to New York and the Caribbean insured by SN?

[PttU]

I guess CS will keep in Eurowings whatever is profitable for them. If they have enough passengers to make DUS-EWR/JFK profitable, that route will stay. And if it's with cheaper SN-crew (cheaper than LH-crew), it's even more profitable.
And you can't blame him: why ditch those customers and leave the market open for competitiors...

Don't forget DUS is about the only, and certainly the biggest airport in Nordrhein-Westfalen: an area slightly bigger than Belgium, but with 50% more inhabitants. From this area to FRA or MUC is comparable to Belgian passengers going to AMS or CDG for flights.

So there IS a market for locals flying from DUS to... wherever. It would be crazy to demand more destinations from BRU, but assuming DUS would only be for European destinations for Eurowings. The only thing that would make more sense than keeping Eurowings-flights DUS-NewYork, would be to make those flights LH-flights. But that might make it more expensive (crew-wise), or more complicated (big bases at FRA, MUC, and a smaller one at DUS?).

And besides: if travellers from around DUS go on holidays or a business trip to Barcelona, they use a point-to-point airline, and when going on a citytrip or business trip to New York, they use a point-to-point airline as well... Maybe for such a destination (much more Point-to-point compared to connecting passengers), the differences with the other Eurowings routes are smaller than the differences with LH. Why should a flight to Egypt, Tunisia or Iceland be Eurowings, and a flight to the USA not?

[sn26567]

I ask for clarification from Brussels Airlines PR. In fact, Eurowings will keep (and even strengthen) long-haul activities. But the "commercial responsibility" (whatever that means) for these flights will be transferred to network airlines. Flights from DUS will be operated by Brussels Airlines, flights from Frankfurt and Munich by SunExpress.

Thus nothing changes for SN at DUS.

[Passenger]

... ... But the "commercial responsibility" (whatever that means) ... ...

The unbiased German tourism newssite answered your "whatever that means", when they reported unbiased about the LH/EW/SN reshuffle: "...Carsten Spohr explained that Lufthansa will take over commercial management of Eurowings’ long-haul operations. The subsidiary will continue to operate these flights as it has a lower cost base, but the parent company will be responsible for sales and marketing, as well as network planning..."

[sn26567]

The subsidiary will continue to operate these flights as it has a lower cost base, but the parent company will be responsible for sales and marketing, as well as network planning..."[/i]

This is a wrong interpretation: the subsidiary does not have any long-haul aircraft and thus relies on Brussels Airlines and SunExpress to operate the flights. On a lower cost base than Lufthansa, that's true!

[Inquirer]

I could be completely wrong of course, but the way I understand it, Eurowings (the working airline) folds back to what it used to be: a sort of Germanwings with a couple of bases outside of Germany too.

Next to that Lufthansa are going to use Eurowings (just the brand) to market new intercontinental flights from its hubs which it does not want to sell under its own name because these routes, the product or the schedules are not up to the standards of their brand...

As Eurowings doesn't have the tools for those kind of thin and few intercontinental flights (planes, crews, back office) nor will it invest in it as it's simply not an efficient use of their financial resources, it will simply source those from third parties like B.air or Sun Express Air.

In short: the brand Eurowings is thus franchisable to Lufthansa (and probably others in future too?) on the intercontinental front in order to allow those network airlines to expand their hub function with the types of flights which are not possible to run under their own brand for various reasons, all without having to put their name on an external wetlease and thus dilute their product.

Not convinced the name and reputation of Eurowings is of very high value, but ok: Lufthansa seems to be convinced it does carry some value over setting up something completely new for this specific kind of operations, like IAG has done with its brand LEVEL, which is also kept apart from Vueling, up to the name even: the later is the main difference vs what we see being done here.

A move to a real holding structure for the Lufthansa Group like IAG has would definitely do them well, because their organisational setup without a central holding entity (Lufthansa is both that entity AND a pilar at the same time) produces these kind of complicated setups... Under a holding setup, Lufthansa could more easily create a seperate long haul airline to the image of LEVEL which would heavily rely on the central entiry's overhead and decomplex complicated setup like these where Lufthansa wants to open certain routes (but can't), and solves it by selling them under the name of a subsidiary of theirs who sadly can't run them, and who needs to source material from yet another airline for it… all of the 3 come with overhead of course!

Anyway, I understand it's currently under consideration, and rightfully so: Lufthansa (the airline) needs to fold back to being just that: a pilar under a holding company which centralises all the central overhead.

[Stij]

Maybe they looked at Edelweiss / Swiss...
Tourist routes are flown by Edelweiss but Swiss codeshares on them as well...

So this summer I flew ZRH-OLB with a Swiss ticked on an Edelweiss flight... operated by Swiss!

Cheers,

Stij

[Ansett]

At the risk of being considered as the ominous member on this forum, I will nevertheless post the following comment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember that when SN was "integrated" into EW, EW was to manage EW's (EW + SN) European flights and SN was to manage EW's long-haul flights with a "center of excellence" ( ) in Brussels.

We'll probably never know what LH/CS's intentions were from the very beginning, but for me (and for them ?) the situation is as clear as mud.

SN managing EW long-haul flights and the center of excellence could very well have been a way to sugar the pill for things to come.

How to get rid of SN ? Do the above, then expell SN from EW, saying EW is basically dead, no more EW long-haul flights, no need for SN's management and center of excellence.

Then, a few days (weeks ?) later, you re-introduce EW long-haul flights under LH management.

Do you think SN has been taken for a ride ? (I do, and not for the first time).

Next move from LH/CS ? (sell SN).

[PttU]

I don't think LH/CS minds having SN in its portfolio. As long as they're profitable, and that's what we hear most now: make money. With SN being part of the LH group, LH has control over routes flown, and a big impact on BRU, so that's a good way to prevent another player becoming a threat to LH.

[sn26567]

Eurowings adds Pristina – Vienna service from November 2019

Source: Airline Route

The route will be operated by Eurowings Europe (Austria) A319.

[nordikcam]

So the Ansett member predicts CS will sell SN ...one day... but to whom?
And the PttU member thinks that LH only keeps SN ...making money...so that another operator does not land at BRU and threatens LH!
Two opposing strategies ...two strategies that do not help the development of BRU...

[PttU]

So the Ansett member predicts CS will sell SN ...one day... but to whom?
And the PttU member thinks that LH only keeps SN ...making money...so that another operator does not land at BRU and threatens LH!
Two opposing strategies ...two strategies that do not help the development of BRU...

Not necessarily opposing: when SN isn't profitable for LH, I don't know what they will do: a little bit of loss-making might be the cost of keeping competition at bay, but how much?

And no, those strategies do not help the development of BRU, but that's not of any concern to LH.