Anonymous320 wrote:I think the distinction should be made between 'Eurowings' and the 'Eurowings Group'. Brussels Airlines could very well keep operating as a seperate entity within the group.
It would be interesting to have more clarification on this relatively new 'Eurowings Group' concept, but indeed, it seems the Lufthansa group intends to duplicate their quite successful cluster of premium brands (Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian) also on the hybrid segment: Germanwings, Eurowings, Brussels Airlines.
Having a local affiliation to the market you operate in is IMHO increasingly important to set oneself apart from all the others competing with you globally and I fail to see why such would be the case only for premium products? I can very much see passengers to prefer this over a generic and globalized product, also in the hybrid market segment.
Compare it to the beer market, if you wish: the Dutch have a globalized approach with Heineken (which is the most internationally sold beer by far), but ABInBev's cluster of local brands still tops them as the biggest brewer in the world. Easyjet and Ryanair may be compared to Heineken's, whereas the Eurowings / Lufthansa group cluster of brands is sort of the ABInBev approach.
The added benefit is then of course that you can allow all those different brands more commercial freedom too: Austrian has been showing off 'part of the Lufthansa group' signs too for some time, but that doesn't turn them into 'Lufthansa Austria' either, including copy-pasting every Lufthansa product or brand feature.
What I would advice Spohr to do is to change name at the group level(s), however.
As this latest integration has clearly shown, it's a pretty poor situation to have a group named after one of its constituting brands as it creates needless confusion as to the fact whether it's an integration into a bigger group, or just a take-over followed by a merger.
IAG for instance has well understood that by adopting a more neutral name, one creates far less animosity when it comes to taking over other local brands in future. Image IAG being called 'British Airways group': such wouldn't have been appreciated in Ireland, I am sure, when they went for Aer Lingus.
Lufthansa and Eurowings -as group names- are bad names: both need something far more neutral: along the lines of 'European Premium Airlines Group' (EPAG) and 'European Hybrid Airlines Group' (EHAG) just to give one example. Both groups holding different brands: the first one Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, the other one Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Germanwings.
Now, that does immediately sound far less threatening, doesn't it?
