The measures involved will range from the expansion of its low cost offshoot Germanwings together with a shortening of aircraft turnaround times; also in the pipeline is a measure to trim back around 3,500 back office jobs. The carrier has also said that it is to consider an auction process for business class seats.
It is understood that Lufthansa plans to transfer employees working at check-in desks and ticket sales counters in airports such as Berlin, Hamburg and Dusseldorf to separate companies. In turn, these new companies would then have to compete with third party providers for Lufthansa contracts. This could help Lufthansa reduce its costs at medium-sized airports and equip it in the fight against other budget carriers.
In bare statistics, Lufthansa's ground services costs work out at around €5 per passenger, which compares unfavourably with costs of around €2 per head for some of its main rivals.
