For the last two years, Warsaw based businessmen flying to and from North America have had a host of flag-carriers from on this hotly contested route. With 55 percent of Lufthansa's Polish customers buying long-haul tickets and using German hubs as gateways to other continents, Zimmer recognizes that this business customer is particularly valuable.
"BA has had beds on its trans-Atlantic business class for two years," says Zimmer. "We are late, but we said that once we do it, we'll do it 100 percent right. Thanks to the new Airbus 340-600 we will have enough space to offer a really luxurious product."
Until now, Lufthansa has been unable to compete with carriers such as BA on product. "Now we are fully competitive," says Zimmer. "Before we were competing on price and schedule, but now we can compete on the product as well, a product that is an improvement on what is already on the market."
Unlike British Airways and Air France, both of which have tried to maintain long-haul luxury while launching low-cost subsidiaries (Go and Brit Air respectively), Lufthansa has continued to focus its attention on the high end of the market, the places where the low-cost rebels cannot and will not go.
Zimmer goes as far as speculating that one day the 'new generation' of carriers could be supplying his intercontinental routes. "Personally, I think that in ten years you will have 'decentralized services'," says Zimmer, "Lufthansa could be concentrating on intercontinental flight while regional travel is serviced by two large European low cost competitors."
In the year 2000, Lufthansa offered routes from Poland to Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt. The first three of these routes have been discontinued. Traffic, especially via Frankfurt, is increasing. The trend has already begun.
Kamil Tchorek
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