11/25/2013

Lufthansa in "panic mode"?

Today there is news (only in German as of now) that Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines are "downgrading" miles flown with Turkish Airlines in their frequent flyer program "Miles & More". Customers who fly with Turkish Airlines on will only get a quarter of the flown miles as status miles. Austrian has canceled the code sharing with THY altogether effective summer 2014. Also Lufthansa is thinking about reducing their code sharing with THY.
This looks a little bit like Lufthansa being in panic mode. In the last two years, there have been multiple opportunities for Lufthansa to set up a wide ranging partnership with THY to fend off the three large gulf carriers. But the Lufthansa management seemed to be confident to go their way without it. Now that Turkish Airlines expanded in Germany big way, flying to 14 destinations today and just announced another one (Kassel-Calden) and many customers including business class customers flying to the Far East prefer THY due to prices and service, Lufthansa reacts.
The only way this move makes sense is that LH has another big plan on the table. Last week there I saw there were news that Lufthansa and Emirates are talking to each other ... could there be another alliance a la Emirates/Qantas in the making?