THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE I 39 The Review ➔ Lufthansa's cabin overhaul


LUFTHANSA is refurbishing cabins across its short and medium-haul fleet, installing some 32,000 new seats on more than 180 aircraft. The ergonomically designed seat


offers an extra four centimetres of legroom, while a slim backrest means that up to two additional rows of seats can be installed, adding around 2,000 more seats in total. The £170million pound investment is part of a wider programme to revamp its inflight product. Storage has been improved, with deeper overhead bins which can store luggage sideways to the direction of travel and larger permitted cabin luggage can now fit underneath the seat in front, due to seats being designed with a different inclination. As part of the new inflight service concept, passengers travelling in economy will be offered snacks such as muesli bars and chocolate again, even on domestic routes. On cross-border European services with a flight time of more than two hours, they will be offered a hot meal. The carrier plans to team up with renowned chefs on its


SINGAPORE Airlines bounced back IN THE AIR IN BRIEF


• EASYJET is turning its attention to the corporate community by launching new flexible fares targeted squarely at business travellers. The low-cost carrier’s new flexible fares will initially be available only through the GDS and TMCs’ own booking tools, becoming accessible to all passengers booking through easyjet. com at a later date. The fares allow for unlimited changes in the three weeks after booking, plus the seven days before travel right up to two hours before the scheduled departure. All flexible fares include speedy boarding and a checked-in bag at no extra cost.


European routes, with the first to consult on the airline's menus revealed as German star-rated chef Heiko Antoniewicz. “With our new, more comfort-


able seats, completely revamped cabin and enhanced inflight service, we are setting new standards on European routes,“ says Thierry Antinori, member of the Lufthansa German Airlines Board. “The slimmer seats will also enable us to increase the


BACK TO BUSINESS FOR SIA year on year across all cabin types,


seating capacity of our short and medium-haul fleet and thus ensure that we remain competitive in to the future.” On the environmental front,


the design and materials used in Lufthansa's new seat mean each row is more than 12kg lighter than the previous seat rows, equivalent to an almost 30 per cent reduction in weight overall, which in turn lowers fuel consumption and carbon emissions.


from the airline’s first half-time loss in its history in 2009, with first-half profits in 2010 that exceeded the whole of the previous year. “Europe and the UK haven’t recovered fully because of weak sterling but Asia has recovered considerably,” explains Joey Seow, general manager of SIA in the UK. “The recovery is mainly in the front end rather than in economy, but VAT rising to 20 per cent in January won’t help discretionary income.” Seow also points to rising yealds


with less discounting evident now that a year ago. “But it still hasn’t recovered to the pre-crisis peak,” he says. What SIA has been busy doing during the recession is surveying what buyers say their travellers want onboard. Being able to work without a laptop, and just a USB port, is one item on the wish list that has been actioned on all A380 and 777-300 aircraft. “We’ve loaded all this functionality but it comes at a cost. Some use it, some don’t.


They can also edit their holiday photos,” says Seow. Female travellers didn’t like having to step over a man in a seat so the aircraft configuration of 1-2-1 means that every seat is an aisle seat in the A380s and 777-300s. “Our challenge is to listen to our customers, but which customers do we listen to? The traveller or the buyer? More often than not we listen to the traveller; it’s a dichotomy,” explains Seow. He says CSR has become more meaningful and important. “Our objective is to make sure all the old polluters will be replaced and that we fly the most technologically- advanced planes.” Lack of expansion at Heathrow


could be alleviated with mixed mode take-off and landings, Seow believes. “It’s practised all round the world. But if there are no opportunities to grow in the South East then airlines will have to look at other opportunities to grow. We do not put all our eggs in one basket, as we have demonstrated at Manchester. We would look at Gatwick if there was demand.“


• FLYBE launched flights between Manchester and Aberdeen in December, offering up to 36 flights a week with three return flights a day on weekdays. The launch is part of a wider schedule offering a choice of up to 242 flights a week on nine routes from Aberdeen. Mike Rutter, Flybe’s chief commercial officer says, “Strong forward ticket sales show that the service is clearly appealing to the business sector for its convenient ‘day-return’ schedule.“


• AMERICAN Airlines is launching its summer service between Manchester and New York JFK on April 6th, a month earlier than last year due to the route's success and could become a year-round fixture. The departures in both directions have also been re-timed by over an hour so that they will now depart Manchester earlier and leave New York later, enabling customers to maximise their time in New York.


• LONG-HAUL, low-cost carrier AirAsia X has announced new routes from its Malaysian hub, Kuala Lumpur, to Paris and Christchurch in New Zealand. The latter service will commence in April, with the airline's through fares from London Stansted starting from £340 one-way (including taxes) during a promotional period.


• AS THIS issue of The Business Travel Magazine went to press a number of aviation news stories were simmering away. The coalition government had just announced a thorough investigation into the snow- induced chaos at airports – and across wider infrastructure – around the country, not least at London Heathrow Airport. Meanwhile, a ruling was expected imminently on the American Airlines/Travelport litigation case, and the new management team at United Airlines had recently announced it has withdrawn a policy that would inhibit access of some travel agencies to the airline's merchant account for sales of tickets on a credit card.


38 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE


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