Lufthansa and Ryanair Strategy

* Corporate profile

Lufthansa is a true dinosaur of aviation, which took its beginning in a distant year of 1926, as a result of a merger between Deutsche Aero Lloyd (DAL) and Junkers Luftverkehr, inheriting its crane logo and blue-and-yellow house colours from them respectively. It launched its first scheduled flights with a fleet of 162 aircrafts of 18 different types, showing its adventurous spirit and ambition via a flying expedition to China. In those distant times Lufthansa was also influential in founding Spanish Iberia, Brasilian Syndicato Condor and Chinese Eurasia. In subsequent decades Lufthansa expanded its reach by making scheduled transatlantic flights and flight to Asia, with an unfortunate suspension of most routes during World War II.

The company successfully enters the jet age in 1960s, its major breakthrough being the Boeing 747 jumbo jet later in 1970. Lufthansa has provided support to the newly founded European aircraft producers by incorporating McDonnell-Douglas DC 10 and the A300 into its fleet. In the 90s Lufthansa suffered through its worst economic crisis and was step by step privatised. According to Lufthansa’s 2012 annual report, 66% of their shareholders are German. Its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), cargo and IT subdivisions grew into independent companies.

In 1997 Lufthansa, along with Air Canada, SAS, Thai Airways and United Airlines, became a founding member of Star Alliance. It went on with technological progress to equip itself with the most advanced passenger planes, such as Airbus a340-600 and A380. Since then, while new partners were expanding Alliance’s global network, Lufthansa has concentrated on enhancing the quality of their services.

Currently the airline operates services to 18 domestic destinations and 197 international destinations in 78 countries across Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe. Its registered office and corporate headquarters are in Cologne, Germany.

* Belt-tightening and strategy

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