DEUTSCHE BA IS considering dropping its five Fokker 100s, to consolidate into an all-Boeing 737 jet-fleet alongside its Saab turboprop aircraft.
Managing director Richard Heideker says that, while Deutsche BA sees its domestic network as necessary to maintain market awareness, future expansion will be focused on international routes, requiring jet services.
The company has a current jet fleet of seven 130-seat 737-300s and five 100-seat Fokker 100s, but Heideker says that it is possible that the latter will be dropped.
The flexibility of a mixed fleet is useful, but "...is in conflict with cost effectiveness", says Heideker. Training and maintenance costs are higher for a mixed fleet and the airline is now weighing up the possible gains of an all-737 fleet, he says.
Meanwhile, however, Munich-based Deutsche BA is claiming a first-round victory in its intensive domestic-fare war with Lufthansa.
Heideker says that the 49% British Airways-owned airline has raised its market share on domestic routes from 31% in June 1994 to 38% in January this year. That is despite an aggressive 1994 ticket-pricing initiative on Lufthansa's Express routes.
"We have won the first round of the battle," says Heideker, "and we think Lufthansa has to think of something new, because with this [price] initiative they cannot win." Heideker says that, against a 15% growth in the market caused by the competing price initiatives, "...we have gained additional traffic and Lufthansa hasn't gained anything".
Deutsche BA predicts a preliminary turnover for 1994/5 of some DM450 million ($319 million).
Lufthansa counters that it is "quite satisfied" with its Express service, which it says is carrying 15% more passengers now than in September 1994, and intends to extend the service to cover all of Germany, rather than just the present seven routes, by the end of this year.
Source: Flight International
