In addition to the existing flight connections, Lufthansa is planning operations of the AIRail service on the route from Düsseldorf central station to Frankfurt Airport station from 1 July 2013. With a journey time from only 1:12 hours, passengers can comfortably travel from the centre of the North-Rhine Westfalian capital to Lufthansa’s biggest hub and so enjoy an even wider range of mobility services. As in Cologne and Stuttgart, they can check-in conveniently from home, en route with a mobile device or at one of the Lufthansa check-in machines at the Deutsche Bahn travel centre. In Düsseldorf, too, customers with First and Business Class bookings can enjoy the amenities of the DB Lounge.  All train and flight numbers, along with the Deutsche Bahn seating plans, are available in the Lufthansa reservation system and the check-in channels. With AIRail, travellers benefit from a range of mobility services that is precisely coordinated with flight connections at the Frankfurt hub. Transfer times are reduced to a minimum, enabling passengers to reach even early intercontinental flights quickly and comfortably.

Yet the Lufthansa Group wants to achieve sustainable profitability levels by 2015 at the latest. By then, the Group aims to use the SCORE program to boost its operating profit to EUR 2.3bn. “Our industry is not only sensitive to crises, it’s also a high-cost sector: kerosene, fees and staff costs, investments in fleet, cabin and ground products – these are all major, fixed-size cost items. Few changes can be made here. So we will need to change ourselves, if we want to survive into the future,” stresses Franz. “We want to shape the industry before it shapes us.” To achieve this goal, more than 2,500 ideas for improving profitability have been generated by Group employees since SCORE was launched. Such suggestions include reorganization of the Group’s administrative processes, eliminating duplicate structures, improving fuel efficiency or the strategic restructuring of the intra-European business segment with the new Germanwings. Total SCORE contributions were EUR 618m, with the Lufthansa Group easily surpassing 2012’s budgeted figure of EUR 280m. 

And yet the Lufthansa Group was still unable to improve profitability last year: “Numerous negative factors – including the high price for kerosene, which drove up expenses by some EUR 1.1bn – ate away at the SCORE successes. And yet without SCORE, we would have posted a negative result in 2012,” said Franz. This is one reason why a freeze on dividends has been recommended to the company’s shareholders for the previous financial year: “Following the persistent decline in operating result our company has experienced in recent years, we have recommended not to pay a dividend to bolster our balance sheet and further strengthen the financial stability of your company,” explained Franz. He was keen to stress, however: “Once we have achieved a sustained reversal of this earnings trend, we will – as before – reinstate dividend payments to our shareholders. That is our objective and that is our promise.” According to Franz, the Members of the Executive Board themselves will make a contribution to the sustainability of the Lufthansa Group as well. For the duration of the SCORE program they have agreed to a salary reduction of five per cent of their base pay.

Although Franz states that 2013 and 2014 will be decisive for the successful implementation of SCORE activities and that their impact on profit will largely be visible only from 2013 onwards, there were signs of more positive business development in the first quarter of the current year. Franz: “Demand in passenger business is following a satisfactory trend. SCORE is on track. Overall, first-quarter earnings for the Lufthansa Group are stable – despite restructuring costs. This gives us cause for optimism.” 

For Franz, the goals for the future are clear. The Group aims to expand its leading position in the market, enhance its enterprise value in the long term and further improve customer satisfaction – in short, to become the best Lufthansa in the company’s history. “We are a good team,” said the CEO: “We have great employees who give all that is asked from them and more. With their ideas, our SCORE program has really come a long way. It also shows creativity and the will to become part of change, part of driving it forward. They deserve the highest praise and my heartfelt thanks for everything that they have achieved last year.”

Deutsche Lufthansa AG
Media Relations Lufthansa Group