Lufthansa steps up sales efforts with a unified team

Out of 66 weekly flights to India, Lufthansa flies 46 to Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai

Lufthansa has created a common sales team for all the  group airlines, including Swiss and Austrian Airlines,  to consolidate its business and stave off competition from Gulf carriers.

The Lufthansa Group operates 66 weekly flights to India. Of these, Lufthansa flies 46 flights a week to Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai. Swiss has a daily flight to Mumbai and Delhi, whereas Austrian Airlines only flies to Delhi. Lufthansa has a three per cent share of India’s international traffic and Frankfurt is among the top five hubs for Indian passengers. The airline also has the largest market share on the India-US routes  but is facing challenges from West Asian airlines such as Emirates, Qatar and Turkish Airlines, apart from traditional European rivals.

The Jet-Etihad alliance, too,  would pose a challenge with plans to launch flights to New York, Newark and Chicago. Recently, Air France-KLM also   stepped up its revenue efforts by signing a code-share pact with Jet Airways.  

Earlier this month, Lufthansa combined its sales team with that of Swiss. It has been handling sales for Austrian from an earlier time. An industry source said the move would help boost productivity and cut costs. Unified sales team would be able to reach a larger number of travel agents and companies and help consolidate business. Both  Lufthansa and Swiss have a large corporate business and have different strengths. For instance, Lufthansa has a wider network. They compete for business and the idea behind merging the sales teams seems to be retaining the business within the group, rather than losing to competition. For now, both would continue to have separate trade contracts.

Lufthansa said, “We are not integrating sales teams but are combining our sales synergies with the objective to provide more efficient services to our sales partners and corporate customers. The sales teams of Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines continue reporting to their respective head of sales in the country.” Similar arrangements have been made in some other markets, the airline said.