The airline is facing rising fuel costs and strong competition from gulf-based airlines and in an employee newsletter distributed at the beginning of this week said it planned to reduce unit costs at its long-haul service by 10% by 2015 and by 20% by 2025, compared with 2011.
“Lufthansa is booking increasingly large declines in income on long-haul routes, even on trunk routes such as Beijing of Shanghai,” the newsletter said.
This is part of a wider cost savings project initiated by Lufthansa called SPRINT, which aims to improve annual earnings by €1.5bn by the end of 2014.
A big part of this will focus on making savings on fuel costs and specifically re-negotiating contracts with suppliers. But Lufthansa also plans to look to look at infrastructure, crew, fleet planning, cabin layout and ground processes.
