DH Interview | ‘Japan & India has us leaning more towards APAC these days’

Frank Naeve, Lufthansa's Senior Vice President of Global Markets and Stations told DH’s Lavpreet Kaur that the airline is actively ramping up its operations in India and deepening its ties with Air India.

Completing 60 years operations in Delhi, the German flag carrier - Lufthansa, has found much to celebrate in the lure of the dynamism being seen in the Indian aviation market. It not only announced the return of its fabled A380 service, complete with first class, to Delhi but as Frank Naeve, Senior Vice President of Global Markets and Stations told DH’s Lavpreet Kaur, the airline is actively ramping up its operations in India and deepening its ties with Air India, to court the market more avidly, starting with a connection between Bengaluru and Munich later this year.

Edited excerpts.

What are your most robust routes and where does India fit into that scene?

While our top global routes were historically trans-Atlantic – Europe to North America – we are seeing a strategic shift to the APAC region with some of the highest growth markets being in Japan and the Indian subcontinent. 

We certainly see the routes from Mumbai recovering very well - particularly between Mumbai and Switzerland - have seen 200-300% growth this year relative to 2022. Others like Mumbai-Munich and Mumbai-Zurich and Delhi to Zurich are also showing quite significant growth rates. The recovery of the Indian market is significant both in terms of leisure as well as corporate travel.

What are the top priorities in your India strategy?

Our priorities are to improve our connections to and from India either with additional frequencies to existing markets or opening up new markets, as we come out of the pandemic. This includes unprecedented investments, to the tune of approximately $2.5 billion in the cabin products, particularly new seats, in the next few years and we're looking to bring those new products and services into India as quickly as possible. Thirdly, we're looking to actively build on  our Star Alliance partnership with Air India. 

Can you expand on your India plans?

We will be starting services from from Munich to Bengaluru from November 3, 2023 and it will be three flights a week service, Alongside we will use our Boeing fleet to do five days a week service between Frankfurt and Hyderabad, starting January 16, 2024.  Unlike some other markets, we are growing more than proportionately into India. Looking at the overall capacity, I'm sure there will be further announcements to come, simply because India is such a dynamic market and we believe that there are opportunities for increasing the quality of our network, not just in terms of  the number of destinations but also the frequencies. 

Why Bengaluru and Hyderabad? Can we expect more such pairing?

When we look at new city pair - from a new hub to an existing destination or a completely new destination - we look at the general market environment. With Bengaluru and Hyderabad have seen some very vibrant developments, both on the business side as well as in terms of demand for leisure travel. There is a large India diaspora not just in Europe, but also in the North Atlantic region - particularly the US and Canada. And in terms of potential other new services, the analysis for a dynamic country like India is always ongoing. India is very much the focus of our plans for the future.

What are the challenges you find in expanding your presence in India?

There are challenges, but not unique to India. First of all, in a growing and dynamic market, infrastructure is always something that we look towards be it airport infrastructure, terminals etc. As the Indian aviation market grows, we have to make sure that the infrastructure  is also growing. The second challenge is the availability of labour. We currently employ over 1000 people, but we're certainly looking to make sure that we're able to hire qualified and motivated team members.

What is Lufthansa’s global standing? How is your portfolio divided between passenger and cargo?

Lufthansa Group is the fourth largest airline group globally and the largest group in Europe. We carry 100,000,000+ passengers per annum and operate the largest network in Europe with 200+ destinations accessible to the Indian traveller via our hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels. Our group generated  € 32.7 billion in revenue in 2022 with the passenger airlines sector accounting for the largest share of that revenue. In 2022 our cargo business in APAC generated  € 1.292 billion in sales for the group.