Alright, this seems like fun, I'll chime in:
A little back-story: After the demise of Air Berlin the central European market is dominated by the LH Group, the DACH region in particular. While there is still a choice of LCC and Charter carriers, there is no second strong legacy-style major carrier for frequent flyers to pick from. If you travel for business, are located in the DACH region and a number of your business flights also take you to other destinations within central Europe, you will end up joining the LH FF-program. There is no other convenient choice.
WE WANT TO CHANGE THAT.
In order for our undertaking to work, we need a strong partner that will stand with us even in hard times. In the initial years it will be extremely hard to get a good grip on the market, because LH will do everything it takes to force us out of business. They will dump their prices on any competition route, so the first years will likely be loss making. Because of that we took our idea of creating an alternative to the LH Group in the DACH region to DL and AA and asked if any of them would be interested in helping us. After thorough negotiations we came to the conclusion to partner with DL. The following agreement was reached: DL receives 33% of the company shares. They provide us with 33% of the initial cash needed, the other 67% will bank loanes co-signed by DL in order to keep interest rates low. They also co-sign the initial aircraft purchases to keep financing costs low. For their troubles DL will receive 50% of the profits for the first 10 profit making years, and 33% (according to their shares) thereafter.
As name for the new company we selected:
1. LTU Lufttransport-Unternehmen GmBH ; in short: LTU
After the death of Air Berlin we bought the LTU naming rights out of the bankruptcy mass. The name in well established in the DACH market. While it was previously a charter carrier, we don't see that as a problem. The name has a high recognition and LTU was loved by millions of travelers for their good service and high safety standard.
2. ICAO-code: LTU ; IATA-code: LU ; callsign: "Lufttransport"
3. Type: Major
4. Fleet:
Short-Haul: Bombardier CS100(25x)/CS300(35x)
Business Class: newly designed seats, 1 - 2 config, 42" pitch, 40° recline, leg and footrest, real partition wall, own lavatory.
PremiumEco: normal 2 - 3 config, 37" pitch, better recline, no slim-line seats, curtain divider.
Economy: normal 2 - 3 config, 33" pitch, with recline, no slim-line seats.
CS100: 9C/15W/75Y = 99 total
CS300: 12C/20W/85Y = 117 total
Long-Haul: Airbus A330-800neo(18x)/A330-900neo(10x)
First Class: generally designed as an open area, no cocoon suits. Each seat has an adjacent dedicated bed that goes with it. Walls around the bed can be driven up to chest-high in order to provide privacy. Seats designed by Stressless, manufactured by Recaro. Each seat has an 42" flatscreen TV.
Config: 1 - 1 - 1
Business Class: also designed as an open area, full flat seats with move-able privacy walls. All seats facing forward, set at an angle of 30°. Feet towards the isle. In the middle section wall can be completely dropped for couples or families flying together. 28" flatscreen TV. Seat designed by Stressless, manufactured by Recaro.
Config: 1 - 2 - 1
PremiumEco: basically short-haul Business Class seat and pitch.
Config: 2 - 2 - 2
Economy: Regular Economy Seat, 34" pitch, with recline
Config: 2 - 4 - 2
A330-800neo: config 1: 6F/32C/24W/99Y = 161 total /// config 2: 36C/24W/155Y = 215 total
A330-900neo: config 1: 6F/36C/30W/155Y = 227 total /// config 2: 40C/30W/179Y = 249 total
ALL Short-Haul as well as Long-Haul PremiumEco and Economy seats do NOT have any IFE equipment. But all aircraft are equipped with streaming quality WiFi free to use for all passengers. They can stream with their own devices and log onto our LTU flight-portal where they are granted free access to the whole Netflix and AmazonPrime video streaming services. The weight saved from not flying around heavy IFE boxes allows us to provide this Netflix + Amazon service. For passengers that didn't bring a device, a sufficient number of tablets are stored at the Purser Work Station and can be "rented" for free, for the duration of the flight.
All seats have USB and outlet charging.
All catering is provided by Do&Co.
5. Headquarter, hubs, focus-cities and lounges:
Headquarter: Hamburg, HAM
Hubs: HAM and MUC
Focus-cities: FRA, DUS, ZRH
Lounges: Newly build First and Business Class Lounges at our hubs in HAM and MUC. Modernizing the existing SkyTeam lounges at our focus-cities FRA, DUS, ZRH, as well as TXL. And on top at HAM and MUC we will also feature small PremiumEco lounges.
6. Frequent-Flyer program: SkyGulls (designed to align nicely with Deltas SkyMiles)
--> little sneak-peak for later, the sea-gull being the unofficial bird of Hamburg it becomes the new heraldic animal for LTU.
7. Alliance: SkyTeam
8. Flights:
HAM is our primary short-haul hub, beyond the DACH region LTU is specialized in norther and eastern Europe.
MUC is our primary long-haul hub, as we are still in the initial phase of business we primarily fly into our SkyTeam partner hubs for connecting traffic.
Our focus-cities provide direct connection where needed in order to compete with the LH Group.
Europe-Shuttle:
HAM-AMS (flown every hour from 6:00 to 22:00 in code-share and JV with KLM as our Shuttle-Service, flights either operated by KLM or LTU, LTU uses CS300)
MUC-AMS (same agreement with KLM, LTU = CS300)
ex HAM, Short-Haul outside DACH:
HAM-LHR (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-MAN (1 daily, CS300)
HAM-OSL (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-TOS (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-CPH (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-BLL (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-ARN (3 daily, CS100/300)
HAM-HEL (2 daily, CS100/300)
HAM-TLL (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-RIX (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-VNO (1 daily, CS300)
HAM-WAW (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-KRK (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-PRG (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-MSQ (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-LED (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-SVO (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-IEV (2 daily, CS100/300)
HAM-ODS (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-OTP (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-SOF (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-BEG (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-SJJ (1 daily, CS100)
HAM-ZAG (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-BUD (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-LIN (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-BCN (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-MAD (3 daily, CS100)
HAM-OPO (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-LIS (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-CDG (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-BRU (2 daily, CS300)
ex HAM, inside DACH:
HAM-MUC (8 daily, CS300)
HAM-DUS (4 daily, CS300)
HAM-CGN (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-TXL (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-FRA (5 daily, CS300)
HAM-STR (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-LEJ (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-NUE (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-ZRH (5 daily, CS300)
HAM-BSL (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-GVA (2 daily, CS300)
HAM-INN (2 daily, CS100)
HAM-VIE (3 daily, CS300)
HAM-GRZ (2 daily, CS300)
ex HAM Long-Haul:
HAM-JFK (Daily A339, config 1)
HAM-ATL (Daily A339, config 2)
HAM-MEX (Daily A338, config 1)
HAM-TPE (Daily A338, config 1)
HAM-ICN (Daily A388, config 1)
ex MUC, Short-Haul outside DACH:
MUC-LHR (3 daily, CS300)
MUC-CPH (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-OSL (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-TOS (1 daily, CS100)
MUC-ARN (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-HEL (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-SVO (3 daily, CS300)
MUC-PRG (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-KRK (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-BUD (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-BEG (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-ZAG (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-LIN (3 daily, CS100)
MUC-MAD (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-CDG (3 daily, CS300)
MUC-BRU (2 daily, CS100/300)
MUC-IST (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-ATH (2 daily, CS100)
MUC-TLV (3 daily, CS100)
ex MUC, inside DACH:
MUC-DUS (4 daily, CS300)
MUC-CGN (3 daily, CS300)
MUC-TXL (4 daily, CS300)
MUC-FRA (6 daily, CS300)
MUC-HAJ (3 daily, CS100/300)
MUC-LEJ (2 daily, CS100/300)
MUC-ZRH (4 daily, CS300)
MUC-BSL (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-GVA (2 daily, CS300)
MUC-VIE (4 daily, CS300)
MUC-GRZ (2 daily, CS100)
ex MUC Long-Haul:
MUC-JFK (2 daily A339, config 1)
MUC-ATL (2 daily A339, config 2)
MUC-MSP (Daily A339, config 2)
MUC-SEA (Daily A339, config 2)
MUC-LAX (Daily A339, config 1)
MUC-YYC (Daily A338, config 2)
MUC-MEX (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-EZE (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-NBO (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-TPE (2 daily A338, config 1)
MUC-ICN (2 daily A338, config 1)
MUC-PEK (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-PVG (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-CGK (Daily A338, config 2)
MUC-NRT (Daily A338, config 1)
MUC-SGN (Daily A338, config 2)
ex DUS direct flights:
DUS-TXL (4 daily, CS300)
DUS-VIE (3 daily, CS300)
DUS-CDG (3 daily, CS300)
DUS-FRA (3 daily, CS300)
DUS-LEJ (2 daily, CS100)
DUS-NUE (2 daily, CS100)
DUS-STR (3 daily, CS100/300)
DUS-ZRH (4 daily, CS300)
ex FRA direct flights:
FRA-TXL (4 daily, CS300)
FRA-HAJ (2 daily, CS100)
FRA-LEJ (2 daily, CS100)
FRA-VIE (4 daily, CS300)
FRA-ZRH (4 daily, CS300)
FRA-CDG (2 daily, CS300)
FRA- AMS (3 daily, CS300)
ex ZRH direct flights:
ZRH-VIE (4 daily, CS300)
ZRH-HAJ (3 daily, CS300)
ZRH-TXL (4 daily, CS300)
ZRH-AMS (3 daily, CS300)
ZRH-CDG (2 daily, CS300)
ZRH-LEJ (2 daily, CS100)
ZRH-NUE (2 daily, CS100)
9.1. Within the DACH region also many Air-by-Rail tickets are available for purchase (e.g. INN-MUC, NUE-MUC, HAJ-HAM)
9.2. Partner Airlines:
Delta: code-share, JV
Aeromexico: code-share, JV
KLM: code-share, JV-Shuttle
Air France: code-share
China Airlines: code-share
Korean Air: code-share
Aerolineas Argentinas: code-share
Aeroflot: code-share
Garuda Indonesia: code-share
Kenya Airways: code-share
Vietnam Airlines: code-share
WestJet: code-share
Checking-Trough of baggage and mutual acceptance of FF status with all SkyTeam members.
9.3. Livery: LTU's new colors are red, silver and dark blue. The new logo is a stylized, simplified sea-gull. The main upper part of the fuselage is painted light silver, it reflects a lot and in sunshine can almost appear white. The middle part of the belly is painted red (the stuff that was blue in the old OS livery). Also the vertical stabilizer, the engines and winglets are red. On the forward fuselage in the silver section "LTU" is written in red capital letters. The sea-gull is designed in silver and dark blue and found the vertical stabilizer, the engines (inside and outside), the belly between the wings and on the winglets (inside and out).
The inside of the planes is predominantly silver and dark blue with red highlights here and there.
9.4. Crew uniforms:
Flight-deck crew: (as an airline pilot myself I redesigned them from the usual to better fit my own needs
)
Black pants and dark blue shirts. No tie, the top button is not even there. The epaulets are black with thin silver stripes spaces rather far apart. Whenever inside no jacket is worn. For outside crews get dark brown leather jackets with removable sheepskin on the inside.
Cabin crew:
Female: choice of pants + blouse, skirt + blouse or dress. Dark blue pantyhose. Rest of the uniform also dark blue with red highlights and silver stripes on the jacket (one for FA, two for Purser). Red/silver neck-pieces.
Male: dark blue pants and shirts with red highlights. Silver and blue tie, red tie pin. Dark blue jackets with silver stripes analog to female colleges.
Hope you enjoyed my presentation of LTU.
Greets,
T1a