JUSTIN WASTNAGE / NEW YORK
German flag-carrier will launch up to four routes with major order for ACJs or BBJs
Lufthansa is to increase its point-to-point business jet services from secondary airports, following the success of its trial service to New York Newark from Düsseldorf.
The carrier is to launch up to four new routes, using wet-leased airliner-class business jets in a deal being finalised with Swiss corporate aviation company PrivatAir, which will underwrite the deal with a major order for Airbus or Boeing aircraft.
The German flag carrier launched the service between Düsseldorf and New York in June, using an all-business class 48-seat Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) operated by PrivatAir. Load factors have, so far, been 10 percentage points above the 60% target.
Carsten Schaeffer, Lufthansa's North American alliances director, says that a formal evaluation of the 12-month lease is likely to be completed by mid-December, but that "looking at the results so far, the deal is likely to be extended". Other routes are being discussed with PrivatAir for next year, he adds.
PrivatAir's chief operating officer Greg Thomas says that it has discussed "half a dozen" new routes with Lufthansa, operating from Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart to points in the Middle East, Russia and the USA.
According to airline sources at Düsseldorf Airport, Lufthansa has signed a deal with PrivatAir for a service to Washington DC, to replace Continental Airlines' service being phased out in January.
The BBJ used in the trial is in PrivatAir's livery, but Schaeffer says that for future contracts, the aircraft would be brought "closer in line with standard Lufthansa business class, in terms of livery, seats and in-flight entertainment".
PrivatAir has negotiated "extremely competitive indicative offers" for the delivery of 10 new aircraft over the next five years, and requires confirmation this month from Lufthansa to place orders for either additional BBJs or Airbus A319 Corporate Jetliners, says Thomas.
PrivatAir, which has also had preliminary talks with Alitalia, British Airways, SN Brussels Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, says it has received an assurance from Airbus that it would match Boeing Business Jets' offer of white-tailed NetJets aircraft by delaying other customers' aircraft if necessary.
The hitherto all-Boeing operator has just been awarded the contract to operate Airbus's own corporate shuttle using an A319 (Flight International, 12-18 November).
Source: Flight International
