WASHINGTON --
Lufthansa expanded its private jet service in Europe this month and
is considering live television for its first and business classes.
The airline
continues its drive to cater to its highest-paying travelers, even
if that means spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Nowhere is
that commitment more apparent than in the exclusive terminal
Lufthansa opened at Frankfurt Airport in December. Only first-class
customers and the most frequent of Lufthansas frequent flyers can
use it.
Those customers
get a personal assistant at their disposal throughout their stay
and can choose between an individual office with a telephone and
laptop connection or a luxuriously furnished room with a bath and
shower. When the time comes to catch the flight, the customer can
choose to be driven in a Mercedes S-Class or Porsche Cayenne
directly to the aircraft, where they climb the stairs to
board.
Lufthansa plans to open
another first-class terminal at its Munich hub next year and has
discussed the possibility of expanding it to other airports, said
Thomas Winkelmann, Lufthansas vice president for the
Americas.
We saw the only
chance to stay profitable is if we have the highest possible
percentage of business and first-class passengers, Winkelmann
said.
Lufthansa spent
more than $36 million to build the first-class terminal and three
new lounges at Frankfurt, and it is spending about $100 per
customer on the services it provides to about 400 people at the
first-class terminal each day. Thats on top of the $365 million
Lufthansa already spent on its new long-haul business
class.
Attracting
high-paying customers has been a Lufthansa strategy for some
time.
In late March,
Lufthansa signed an agreement with NetJets to offer Lufthansa
Private Jet to its first-class, business-class and top
frequent-flyer customers for flights to or from Munich from more
than 1,000 airports around Europe -- provided they pay about $6,000
to $11,000.
Three years ago,
Lufthansa launched executive business-jet service between Newark
and Dusseldorf, Germany. Since then, it has added
Dusseldorf-Chicago and Munich-Newark. It uses Privatair A319 and
737 aircraft configured for 48 seats.
To contact
reporter Andrew Compart, send e-mail to [email protected].