Changes in business and organisation
The Lufthansa Group regularly reviews its organisational structure and adapts it to any changes in the business environment. Opportunities to increase efficiency are seized in all of the Lufthansa Group’s segments and are reflected in the planning.
Lufthansa Group airlines moving ever closer together
The Lufthansa Group is reorganising collaboration across the Group. These changes not only affect the organisational structure, but even more so the processes, the financial steering framework and collaboration across the Group. This means the Network Airlines in the Group in particular are moving closer together and will operate in even more integrated manner in future. The aim is to strengthen and expand their market position, particularly for the Network Airlines Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. Efficiency and profitability should likewise improve at the same time.
The airlines will continue to take their own decisions regarding their passengers’ customer experience. This concerns the in-flight product, catering, lounges in home markets and passenger service, for example. The Network Airlines will also stay responsible for managing their individual flight operations.
Cooperation between the Network Airlines in the Group will become more integrated and connected in areas that are less visible to the customer, as is currently the case in the loyalty segment with the Group programme Miles & More or the ongoing development of the award-winning customer app. The app was developed centrally by the Group, but the design and functions are tailored to the individual airlines.
Network management for short and medium-haul routes will be carried out by the Group for all Network Airlines in future. This will take place in close coordination with the airlines. The model has been successfully established for ten years for long-haul routes. As a result, the steering of all commercial capacities will now be pooled and managed by the Group. Passengers, who predominantly already use more than one Group company for their travel, will have an even more coordinated range of services to choose from. This move will also boost efficiency and enable decisions to be taken faster.
Cooperation across the Group will be managed primarily by means of Group Functional Boards in future. The airlines are represented on these boards, as are the Group Functions. They will be chaired by the relevant Group Executive Board member, and discuss and decide on all the topics relevant to their area. All the boards will also have a Functional Financial Controller to manage the financial aspects. There will be a total of four Group Functional Boards: Hub Steering, Technology, HR and Finance.
IT functions will be merged under the leadership of CTO Grazia Vittadini in order to further strengthen digitalisation and innovation. In addition, the digital entities and competences from the Digital Hangar will be pooled with the Innovation & Tech Factory in a new centralised role in order to drive technological progress in the Lufthansa Group. This further development will create a Group-wide central digital competence across the areas of Operations, Customer, Commercial and Corporate.
Transformation to an airline group is advancing
Concerning the Lufthansa Group’s strategic direction as an airline group, ITA Airways will be further integrated into the Lufthansa Group following the purchase of 41% of its shares.
The Lufthansa Group is still seeking to play an active role in the consolidation of the airline industry. Potential equity investments in other companies are always judged on the basis of their contribution to value creation. As part of its portfolio management, the Group still regularly reviews its non-airline activities for synergies with its core business and long-term growth prospects.