Left Field happened to hear Wolfgang Mayrhuber, the chief executive of Lufthansa, who was in Chicago for a Star Alliance chief executives meeting. He spoke over breakfast with reporters as news emerged that Lufthansa was not just buying Austrian but might buy SAS and after LH said it was taking over the stake in bmi that it didn't yet have. The Cologne-based carrier has been on a buying spree for several years, starting with its 2005 takeover of Swissair, now Swiss International, but Mayrhuber repeated his mantra, "We don't just buy airline to have airlines." He went on to explain Luftie's 'modular' approach:Mayrhuber says Lufthansa preferred not to seek full mergers with other airlines because integration brings "dis-synergies." Mayrhuber describes the Lufthansa concept of airline consolidation "as a modular one...it is like one kitchen, several restaurants. We make kartoffeln (German potatoes), Swiss makes rosti (another spud concoction), and bmi makes fish and chips."
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