Lufthansa Group is announcing major changes, especially those concerning the Eurowings brand. The plan to integrate Brussels Airlines into Eurowings has been a failure (several Brussels Airlines aircraft have been repainted into Eurowings colors and were operating under the Eurowings brand). Brussels Airlines will now stand alone under it own brand and will now be aligned with the other network airlines (Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian).
Here is the full announcement:
The Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG is informing investors and analysts about the further development of its airline strategy. The planned actions should sustainably enhance Lufthansa Group’s value creation. A key element is a comprehensive set of measures to turn around Eurowings, which should be returned to profit as swiftly as possible and sustainably generate value for shareholders.
To enable shareholders to participate more substantially in the Group’s results, the current dividend policy shall be changed. In future, 20 to 40% of the Group’s net income should be regularly distributed to shareholders. In the medium term, the Group aims to raise its free cash flow to at least EUR 1 billion a year.
Various planned actions will be presented to analysts and investors today. These include:
“With the airlines in our Group we are excellently positioned in our home markets, which are among the strongest in the world,” says Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board & CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. “Our Group’s service companies are also world leaders in their fields. We want to translate this market strength even more consistently into sustainable profitability and value creation. And it is to this end that we are presenting concrete actions today which will enhance our efficiency and generate value for our shareholders. Because we don’t just want to be Number One for our customers and our employees: we want to be the first choice for our shareholders, too.”