hynithuchi wrote:I can't help thinking that the decision in favour of Eurowing has already been made. There was no real reason to raise the subject of Eurowings again, so it seems to me that after a long silence, this new interview is simply meant to gradually prepare the public opinion and their staff of a coming change. And, as Xorrygva wrote, I'm convinced that the Eurowings strategy would totally fail at GVA and leave the door wide open for Easyjet.
It could very well just be pressure being put onto the GVA management and team to obtain better results. At one point LX has to decide what they want - there is still no pilot base in GVA for a fleet of 7 aircraft (hotels must love the business), does LH feel crew costs can be cut further, unit costs also ? It seems to me Kluhr's message seems to be more of a bargaining tool than openly saying Eurowings will be in and Swiss out before you know it.
MoonC wrote:This should put a rest to the idea some have/had that LX would start longhauls from GVA.
And yet ironically longhaul is what keeps the GVA boat afloat right now, GVA-JFK is profitable as are joint venture flights to YUL, IAD and EWR. Opportunities still exist and existed (for example GVA-MRU that turned out successful for MK and could have been for WK).
ME720 wrote:Dropping the tiny sandwich will not saveLX operations at GVA, they can not compete with Easyjet. They must concentrate on high yield and niche markets (Moscow, TLV, maybe BEY and other destinations) complementing their ZRH hub. Feeding into and from their code shared flights with the likes of SN and other star alliance partners operating into GVA.
Most routes don't even offer a sandwich. Take GVA-NCE it's drinks and chocolate, GVA-BCN/PMI is a pretzel bun. Handing out sandwiches doesn't cost much, alcohol does. LCCs, BA/IB/SK have all shown that the majority of pax don't care about meals but care about price and schedule.
Blerg wrote:I wonder if they are losing less money because of improved sales or because they cut most of the heavily loss-making routes.
They are losing less money because of the CSeries. It's very simple before they used to have to fill up 180 seats of an A320, they are down to 145 on the CS300 with 20% lower operating costs, less crew (3 vs 4, except DME which is crewed with 4). They are no longer chasing more pax at a lower yield. That said, you need to fly your planes to the right places and the right times, which hasn't been something LX has been very good at all the time...
Another noted change is that LX's winter schedule is pretty much non existant on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which must have cut losses too.
More loss making routes are being rightsized frequency wise, for example this past winter LX flew GVA-LGW 4x per week (3x Saturday and 1x Sunday) with a night stop in LGW the Saturday evening (why nobody knows). This involved deheading 2 crews just for that night stop which left LGW at 6AM Sunday morning and very often only with a handful of pax. The result is that LGW-GVA has become significantly loss making too and is programmed as a single weekly flight next winter, except for peak holiday periods.
