Lufthansa and its low-cost affiliate germanwings are planning to compete head-on at Hamburg airport, in a move that also sees Lufthansa move away from its policy of concentrating on feeding its Frankfurt and Munich hubs.
The move comes as easyJet and Ryanair, with major aircraft orders coming onstream, expand aggressively into central and northern Europe. Ryanair plans to open a base at nearby Lübeck for the Hamburg market, although the airport’s owner is having problems getting permission to extend the runway at this former military airbase.
Lufthansa plans to base four additional Boeing 737s at Hamburg, with two rows of seats taken out, and “BetterFly tariff” fares starting at €99 ($123) and covering all 23 destinations out of Hamburg. This includes six new routes: Budapest, Gothenburg, Madrid, Nice, Prague and Rome.
Germanwings, meanwhile, will open its fourth base at Hamburg. The carrier, which has been scouting for extra bases this year, is owned by regional carrier Eurowings, which is 49%-owned by Lufthansa. It has been used by Lufthansa as a semi-detached tool for fending off low-cost competition.
Germanwings will start operations from Hamburg this winter. The carrier has taken a mid-market approach to low cost, and relies on a mix of leisure and business traffic. Destinations from Hamburg will include Istanbul, Krakow, London Gatwick, Munich, Oslo, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Toulouse, Warsaw and Zagreb. The carrier will be going head-to-head with Lufthansa on the Stuttgart route, while its London Gatwick service will compete with Lufthansa’s Hamburg-London Heathrow offering.
Germanwings managing director Andreas Bierwirth says: “Differentiating the two products will be easy. We will focus only on price and a solid product.” He contrasts this with Lufthansa’s full product offering with its Miles & More frequent flyer programme. Germanwings picked Hamburg ahead of Nuremburg, partly due to the arrival of competitors dba and Air Berlin at the Bavarian airport. It also expects to open a base at either Basle or Zurich in Switzerland for the winter season.
Source: Airline Business
