JUSTIN WASTNAGE / LONDON
German carrier DBA is warning that it will alert competition authorities to any incidences of alleged predatory pricing by Lufthansa on German domestic routes as part of the former British Airways subsidiary's investment bank-led recovery plan.
Pilots unions and ground staff representatives agreed to pay cuts of 20% for the next year in a bid by new owner Intro to shave €10 million ($11.8 million) in staff costs.
Hans Rudolf Wohrl, head of Intro, which bought DBA for €1, told the Vereinigung Cockpit pilot union at a meeting last week that the company's "operation is designed for a fleet of at least 25 aircraft, and we only have 16". Wohrl says he would rather redeploy excess staff as the airline grows than force redundancies. Intro has also extended several lease deals for its Boeing 737s, "renegotiating payments downwards" to reduce costs, it says.
Wohrl says that, as the airline's operations separate from those of BA, the transparency of its pricing will enable German and European competition authorities to observe alleged fare dumping by other carriers. "I won't take illegal predatory pricing lying down," says Wohrl. Previous investigations into the long-running fare war between DBA and Lufthansa have foundered as the German anti-trust body Bundeskartellamt found it too complex to determine the true operating costs of domestic flights, once separated from its long-haul networks. Munich-based DBA (formerly Deutsche BA) was sold to Wohrl, who founded charter carrier Nürnberger Flugdienst, by the UK flag carrier in July after BA agreed to a £25 million ($41 million) investment plan for the first year.
Source: Flight International
