Lufthansa is positive that it can attain the operating profit of last year even with high costs of fuel, and will make use of the crisis facing airline companies to look at acquisitions, the carrier's chief finance officer said.

"Matching the 2007 results will be ambitious, but we are convinced that we will be still be able to reach it", Stephan Gemkow, Lufthansa CFO, revealed it to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview that appeared on Monday.

The carrier has said that it is intending to match at least the 1.38 billion euros in operating profits it achieved a year ago, and its chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber said previously this month that high costs of fuel had reduced the scope for the company to do better than it did previous year.

Confirm your bookings by the 23rd of June and avail the special offer: Lufthansa, the German national carrier, is offering special fares on a number of its African destinations. This is great chance for you to visit the African adventure with one of the best airlines of the world at a time when aviation industry is facing one of the toughest problems.

The carrier is offering cut priced seats in economy class on its services to the capital cities of Khartoum, Addis Ababa and Cairo, with outbound flights operating from five major airports in the UK.

Those who want to fly to Cairo can fulfill their wish for just £319, taking off from London Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol.

Lufthansa hiked the surcharges it charges from travellers to offset high fuel costs for the second time in a month, as the price of oil stays above $130 per barrel.

From 16th June, the charges on both domestic and European services will go up by 3 euros to 24 euros each way, the carrier said on Wednesday. The surcharge on long-haul services will increase by 10 euros to 92 euros each way.

In a statement, Lufthansa said, "n recent weeks, crude oil and kerosene prices have continued to rise... In response to this development, Lufthansa is adjusting its fuel surcharges on its flights".

A top official of Austrian Airlines has gone public with his disagreement to a promising alliance between the Austrian flag carrier and Lufthansa-the Germany based carrier.

Alfred Junghans, a member of the supervisory board of the carrier, said that he did not think that an alliance with the German carrier was in the best interest of Austrian Airlines, arguing that the carrier should look to work with Air France-KLM, reports Forbes. So, Lufthansa will possibly not be able to set up an alliance with Austrian Airlines.

His logic is that Lufthansa operates 3 key locations within 400 km of the Vienna International Airport, the home base of Austrian Airlines, and this would surely mean that the long-haul routes of the Austrian flag carrier would be considerably cut, in order to promote Germany's national carrier.

A spokesman for the Deutsche Lufthansa AG said that the company had no plans to raise its fuel surcharges or call off flights in order to deal with high prices of oil, touching an all time high level of above $135 a barrel in the international market.

The spokesman said, "We are well prepared for higher oil prices", and added that the airline had hedged its fuel requirements by about 85 per cent.

American Airlines announced yesterday that it would begin charging a fee of $15 for the first checked bag, cut domestic services and cut jobs to deal with the high fuel costs.

Another hint has been given by the chief executive of the German airline Lufthansa that the company will work out an option to buy bmi, the British carrier and the second-largest airline at London Heathrow airport, reports the Times. This could lead to a wonderful development for Lufthansa to increase its operation in Britain.

The news appears precisely a month after another executive at Lufthansa said that the carrier was determined to buy the British carrier.

According to the Times reports, Wolfgang Mayrhuber have said that the German carrier considers an option that permitted it to take over bmi, and that a price for the arrangement had been fixed when the deal was reached.

Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, has announced a hike in fuel surcharge on all of its services, in response to the continuously rising cost of crude oil and kerosene. This is not a surprising move taken by the airlines but surely the pressure on air travellers is increasing, as almost all the airlines are increasing the fuel surcharges that shoot the prices up of air travel.

The airline has decided to increase the fuel surcharge by adding five Euros to all flight segments on its long-haul services, which will take the cost up to €82.

And, the fuel surcharge on its domestic as well as intra-European services will go up by four Euros-increased to €21 per flight segment.

Confirm your booking by the 13th of May and enjoy discounted fares to popular destinations in Europe.

Lufthansa, the German national carrier, is offering cut priced economy class seats on its flights to a number of popular European destinations, with fares starting from as low as £39. This is a great offer presented by Lufthansa, as otherwise, the prices of air tickets are increasing everywhere due to rising fuel costs.

Among the destinations included in the offer ending midnight on Tuesday evening are Athens, Malta, Istanbul, Warsaw and Munich.

The first flight of Lufthansa, German flag carrier, on the route between Birmingham and Hamburg-the second largest city in Germany-has left the grounds for a successful beginning, offering travellers the chance to take advantage of its six times a week service.

Operating from Monday to Saturday, the flights with take off from Birmingham at 11.30 a.m. and will reach Hamburg at 2.10 p.m.

On their return journey, flight will head out from Germany at 10.15 a.m. and will reach the West Midlands at 11 a.m.

Lufthansa, Germany-based carrier would begin operating five flights from the Indian city of Kolkata to Frankfurt from the coming week. This is a very good development for relationship between two countries-India and Germany.

The new air link would encourage exchange with Germany, and Bavaria. It would be a significant development for both the countries as lots of passengers from India travel to Germany and now they will be able to take flights directly to Frankfurt from one of the metros.

Bengal looked at Bavaria as a joint business partner which could play an important role in the development of the state, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattarcharjee, said at the Bengal-Bavaria Business summit 2008.

After a successful period, Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, has come to a decision to add more transcontinental services on the route from Frankfurt to Orlando.

Lufthansa started operating its flights on the route between Frankfurt and Orlando last fall, but the carrier currently offers only five times a week service on the route.

And, now the carrier has decided to serve the route daily. The increased number of flights will be available from the 26th of October.

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You will be staying at Cape Town's Winchester Mansions-a fifty-one room retreat constructed in the 1920s representing the luxury and hospitality of the past. Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and only 10 minutes away from the superb Clifton Beaches, the hotel is a calm oasis only 7 minutes from Cape Town.

In a significant move to introduce an innovative mobile boarding pass service, Lufthansa, the national carrier of German has launched this service in two of its domestic routes for a trail run. Now, passengers booked for flights with Lufthansa between Hamburg to Munich or Frankfurt can forward a request for receiving an electronic boarding pass. The request can be made either via email or SMS text message during the time they check-in online.

The electronic boarding pass sent to the passengers contains all the necessary flight data in addition to a 2D barcode. Upon their arrival at the airport, if the passengers are carrying only hand luggage, then the barcode will allow them to directly proceed to the security check point.

The electronic boarding pass scheme will be let for trail run in the above said two routes for a period of eight weeks as part of the pilot scheme. Once the scheme proves successful, the airline will extend this service to many of its domestic routes in the initial stage. Following this, Lufthansa will explore the possibilities of implementing mobile boarding pass scheme to all its international connections too.

After the appearance of Punctuality Statistics for 2007, Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline company based in Cologne is apparently the most reliable airline company offering services from London Heathrow Airport.

According to the numbers for the 30 largest routed airline companies offering services to London Heathrow, the average check on the flights of Lufthansa (a total of 20,810 during the year on) was just 12.22 minutes. The average delay on Lufthansa's flights is more than seven minutes less than the average delay at the hub.

Receiving the news gladly, Lufthansa's General Manager UK and Ireland, Marianne Sammann, said, "This simply reinforces Lufthansa's world renowned reputation for reliability and high service standards and shows why we are continuing to see exceptional passenger growth within the UK & Ireland. 2007 was another record breaking year for Lufthansa as we set a new airline record for passengers carried to and from the UK & Ireland for the second successive year".

Confirm your seat bookings by the 14th of April and enjoy cut priced flights to Caracas and Sao Paulo.

Lufthansa, the Germany based airline, is offering cut priced seats (return) on its flights to Caracas and Sao Paulo. The offered fares start from just £389. This is a great set of offers provided by the world-famous airlines and you should not think twice before making the bookings.

Passengers will be able to take a flight from a number of UK airports, including Manchester, London Heathrow, Bristol, Edinburgh and Birmingham. So, you have wide variety of choice for boarding the flights with Lufthansa Airlines.

Signing a cooperation agreement, Lufthansa and Ethiopian Airlines together launched new routes to connect Frankfurt and the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on 4th April 2008. Remarkably, on either of these flights operated in these routes, customers of both these airlines can enjoy a wide choice of about seven flights per week. 

Available for bookings now, the unique advantages of code share flights are more flexibility and an enhanced choice of connections. Under the new launch, Airbus A300-600 of Lufthansa will operate between Frankfurt and Addis Ababa four times a week. There will be a stop over in Khartoum. On the other hand, Boeing 767 of the Ethiopian Airlines will offer thrice-weekly services on this route.

The codeshare agreement between the two airlines will also be extended to several other services connecting Frankfurt and destinations in the US and Europe, in addition to services between Addis Ababa and destinations in Eastern and Central Africa.

In a significant move, Bristol International is vigorously into the necessary groundwork for launching Lufthansa, the German Airline, which will be offering its daily services commencing from 31st March.

Commencing from next week, the carrier will offer flight services to Frankfurt with three flights a day. From Frankfurt, travelers can avail European and International connections.

As part of the groundwork, the airport has been conducting training checks on the systems of Lufthansa to get things ready before the airline arrives. In addition, the airport has also ordered for German Newspapers for the business lounge.

Confirm your seat booking by midnight on the 17th of March and enjoy special fares to Middle East.

Lufthansa, German carrier based in Cologne, is offering special fares for its flights to various destinations in the Middle East: Dubai, Muscat and Kuwait. This is a very good news for passengers of Lufthansa who want to travel to Middle East from London Heathrow.

Return tickets for flights from London Heathrow are available at a price beginning from just £369. Ticket fares also include all the fees, charges and taxes--so this provides a real great chance for travellers to visit their favourite destinations in Middle East with Lufthansa.

In a strategic and significant move, Lufthansa is into building up its own private jet fleet during this year. In this connection, a Cessna Citation CJ3, the first member of the new aircraft is ready for being delivered to the airline in April. On the whole, the nine new private jets are to enter into service during the forth-coming months. With the deliveries scheduled to begin in April, the nine aircraft meant for operation in the new fleet are chosen from the Cessna and Bombardier plane makers.

The present move by the airline aims to accommodate the surging demand. Actually, when compared with the previous year, the number of private jet flights operated by the company rose by 26 per cent in 2007.

As a result of this, the customer demand strongly outweighed the total capacity, during the year by around 25 per cent in an average, with as much as 60 per cent during peak months. However, the rate of customer satisfaction with the Lufthansa Private Jet (LPJ) service remains consistently at above 90 per cent. Now it can increase further.

In a move to significantly expand its route network further, Lufthansa has enhanced its summer timetable 2008 with 15 brand new destinations. With this, the number of destinations served by the airline goes up to 207 in over 81 countries. The main focus of this expansion is the long-haul routes to the excellent growth markets in North America and Asia.

In order to exclusively serve these two high-traffic areas, Lufthansa offers seven new connections, making an additional 36 round-trips per week. In addition, the business centres in Europe will be conveniently connected with the hubs of Lufthansa at Frankfurt and Munich. Some of these important connections will be served by several flights everyday.

Lufthansa customers have a wide range of options to choose from the long list of new European destinations, which will have direct services from several airports in Germany. On the whole, the new timetable meant for the period between the 30th March and 25th October 2008 offers 37 new city pairs. Notably, the total seat capacity of the entire Lufthansa network for the summer 2008 has gone up by 7.4 percent when compared to last year, while the European traffic goes up by 5.8 percent and the intercontinental connections go up by 8.2 percent.

Lufthansa, based in Cologre, has launched a new Personal Assistant service at London Heathrow Airport.

The German carrier has introduced the new personal assistance service after a three months trial. The new service is available to the passengers travelling with the airline on a First Class ticket and to the members of HON Circle.

London Heathrow is the first hub based in Europe to take advantage from the Personal Assistance service of the German airline.

Continuing the expansion of its services to India, from 3rd May 2008, Lufthansa is to become the only airline to link Munich, the south German hub with Mumbai (Bombay). Subsequently, the airline is to employ an Airbus A340-300 to offer three weekly flights from Munich to supplement Lufthansa's daily services from Frankfurt. Over and above, the airline will add one more flight on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 3rd June to boost its current service connecting Frankfurt and Kolkata (Calcutta) in Northeast India.

Karl Ulrich Garnadt, Executive Vice President Services and Human Resources, Lufthansa Passenger Airlines remarked, "India is increasingly gaining in importance as a strategic growth market. That is why Lufthansa has steadily expanded its flight services to the country in recent years. In future, our customers will have a choice of 50 flights a week to six destinations in India. This will underpin our position as the European market leader,"

Mumbai is one of the most popular cities of the world with over 13 million residents. Accounting for over 40% of India's foreign trade, this is the commercial capital of India besides being the most important port of the country. The special introductory fare of Lufthansa's services to Mumbai is priced at 599 euros to be booked between 20th February and 31st March for travel between 3rd May and 30th June. This price applying to economy class will also include taxes and all charges. Online bookings will be charged 15 euros.

A new service between Birmingham International Airport and Hamburg-the second largest city in Germany, has been launched by Lufthansa, German flag carrier and the second largest airline in Europe.

Starting from the 31st of March, the carrier will operate its services on the new route from Monday to Saturday. This is a great news for passengers of this link, as they would be able to enjoy the services of Lufthansa that are quite impressive by all means.

The price of one-way tickets is beginning from just £39 in economy class, with business class cabin seats also available for the passengers.

For the year 2007 Lufthansa has been graded as the chief among eight divisions by the readers of Business Traveller Deutschland magazine. This is a great new for Lufthansa and for passengers of Lufthansa also.

Due to the airline's powerful safety standards it is greatly honoured by business travellers. In a current inspection done by the publication, Lufthansa is at the hit list on domestic German and European routes and also on flights to North and South America, the Middle East and Africa.

One more time the contestants in the election were influenced by the website - Lufthansa.com, which got the chief place alternatively for the third year.

A new twice-daily service has been introduced by Lufthansa-one of the world's leading airlines, from London City Airport to the capital city of Germany, Berlin. The airline claimed that its new service offers the fastest journey yet between these two destinations.

From London City Airport, flights will take off at 9.40 a.m., and 6 p.m. and will reach at Tegel Airport of Berlin at 12.25 p.m. and 8.45 p.m. (local time) respectively.

On their return journey, flights will take off from Berlin at 8.30 a.m. and 4.50 p.m., and will reach London at 9.10 a.m. and 5.30 p.m.

Lufthansa has launched a brand new all-premium Boeing Business Jet service in partnership with PrivatAir, the Swiss-based business aircraft operator, connecting Munich and Dubai. This is a welcome news for passengers who are looking to travel from Europe to Dubai, which is fast becoming the destination of the world.

Presently, the airline is flying Airbus A340-300 on this route. However, with effect from 1st May, the company is going to switch to a Boeing 737-700, operated by another carrier. So, passengers will be able to plan their travel more freely with increased availability of seats with Lufthansa.

The airline has nevertheless declined to confirm the plan saying that it is still exploring the various options for the all-premium route. The spokesperson remarked, "The planning is not yet closed. We're still evaluating different possibilities and different routes on which to deploy Lufthansa business jets."

In a joint venture with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), LUFTHANSA GHANA (LG) has launched a "Pay-Later-Plan" for its teeming passengers in view of offering its 40years' celebration package.

The General Manager of LG, Mr Silvio Uhlfelder remarked, "The basic requirement are simple; all you need is an account with SCB in Ghana, with a minimum of 6 months' accounts relationship."

According to the General Manager, the facility termed as SCB/Lufthansa Smart Credit Loan was aimed at helping passengers of the airline buy tickets through a loan facility scheme offered by the bank. For this special purpose, the website Lufthansa .com has been redesigned to enable passengers purchase tickets online.

German carrier Lufthansa is planning to grow its services from Edinburgh airport over the next one and a half year's time. This will be the airline's first Scottish expansion in 5 years.

Lufthansa, which operates 3 daily flights to its Frankfurt hub, revealed it was thinking to start one more flight: either to add to the existing services to Frankfurt route, or to launch a fresh destination in Germany. The airline started its three times daily flight in the year 2002 after taking on the route from bmi, its competitor airline.

Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa's UK general manager, said , "There are no immediate plans to expand in Edinburgh over the next few months or so, but it is something that is definitely on our radar, perhaps over the next 18 months. We have a number of options, but we will be deciding whether it would be best to increase our Frankfurt flights to four a day, or fly to another place in Germany. Munich, our second base and our new base at Dusseldorf would be likely options".

From 30th March 2008, Lufthansa will start operating a non-stop three times a day flights to Bristol in South West England from its major hub, Frankfurt. The new service will be offered year-round. 

Dr. Karl-Rudolf Rupprecht, Head of Hub Management at Frankfurt, said, "Bristol and its environs are one of the most important economic regions in the UK. The new route will bring considerable time savings for the travel plans of many business travellers".

Bristol will become the 7th destination in the UK served by Lufthansa: other destinations being Birmingham, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Newquay.

Now, Lufthansa customers can select their seat at the time of online check in through www.lufthansa.com. With a graphic seat plan, the selection is made simple, as it shows all the available seats when checking-in online. Passengers can choose their seat while sitting at their home or at the office. After selecting their seat, they print their boarding pass.

What's more, the facility of checking-in online is now available 23 hours before the flight takes-off, which will allow travellers to ensure in good time of getting their chosen seat in the plane cabin.

Simultaneously, after around 10 months since their launch, passengers can now obtain online boarding passes for flights on more than 350 routes served by Lufthansa including all German domestic routes and on most flights to European destinations.

With effect from this winter, Lufthansa has plans to increase its flight services between Newcastle and Dusseldorf. According to the announcement by the German National Airline, starting from November 5, twice daily flights on weekdays and daily flights on weekends will fly to Dusseldorf.

This is a good news for frequent fliers to Dusseldorf and they will have access over greater range of schedule of flights, and moreover, there would be greater chance of air-travel by passengers due to increased capacity of flights.

Flight timings also have undergone a revision enabling easier onward connections to some of the European destinations like Budapest, Marseille, Bucharest, Katowice, Milan, Warsaw, and Stockholm that are not served directly from Newcastle. This is a sort of added advantage for frequent travellers and they are certainly going to enjoy this feature to their best use by planning their visits accordingly.

Starting in April 2008, Lufthansa, the German Carrier has decided to resume daily flights between Munich and Tel Aviv. This would sound surprising to the passengers, but it could be true as the airlines is trying hard to get this issue solved.

Earlier, the services of Lufthansa on this route were suspended in response to the decision of the High Court of Justice requiring to freeze on daily flights to Germany. The resumption of the above said service follows that the freeze period comes to an end in April 2008, and of course the airlines is looking forward to the end of this freeze period and start the flights again by having the permission of the high court.

As a part of the move, the airline will lodge a formal request to the High Court of Justice to allow the resumption of the above said services with the freeze period coming to an end.

By addition new destinations, Lufthansa is continuing to expand its services. With the start of the 2007-2008 winter timetable, the global route network of the carrier will encompass 188 destinations in 79 nations. Three new routes are added: to Orlando, Lahore and Karachi.

In a bid to maintain a stable schedule throughout the year, many of the new services that were started this summer will remain operational during the forthcoming winter season.

The new timetable for the winter season is applicable from 28th October 2007 to 29th March 2008.

Offering its customers 'à la carte mobility', the flight service, Lufthansa Private Jet has become an inflexible fixture in the strategy of Lufthansa.

"Our customers particularly appreciate the opportunity of enjoying the exclusive Lufthansa First-Class amenities on the Private Jet service, making their journey even more comfortable", said Thierry Antinori, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales at Lufthansa Passage Airlines.

In the near future, more jets will be ready to work, including the next addition of the Falcon 2000, which provides comfortable seating to up to 10 passengers.

With the action of a local set to draw travellers from the German city, Lufthansa is to start a fresh service between Newquay and Dusseldorf. A weekly service is set to begin in June next year, offering Cornish visitors the opportunity to travel to the heart of the Rhein-Ruhr area, reports the Travel Mole website.

Newquay Cornwall Airport project director Chris Cain thinks that German visitors will use the service of Lufthansa to visit the south west of England, and explore the area where author Rosamunde Pilcher was born.

"Germany is Cornwall's strongest overseas tourist market having been popularised by the German television dramatisation of the novels by Rosamunde Pilcher and we are confident this direct link will provide an even greater boost for inbound tourism from Germany", said Chris Cain.

On Monday, Deutsche Lufthansa AG said that following an increase in oil prices, it will raise the fuel surcharge on its cargo services beginning next month. This increase in the surcharge could reduce the business of airlines, but in face of increased oil prices, the airlines is bound to increase it and there is perhaps no solution for this thing at present.

A spokeswoman from Cologne-based company, Amelie Lorenz said that the airline currently has no plans to hike the fuel surcharge on its passenger services.

The cargo unit of Germany's biggest carrier said that for cargo flights the carrier will charge 65 euro cents (91 U.S. cents) per kilo from October 8. Currently, the company is charging 60 euro cents (84 U.S. cents) per kilo, which were earlier raised in July by the company from 55 euro cents (77 U.S. cents).

From November, Lufthansa will increase the number of flights between Newcastle and Düsseldorf to double than the present. The new service times will provide better onward links within 35 minutes.

The flights will include two flights each weekday and one flight every Saturday and Sunday.

Starting from November 5, the new flight times will also offer more and fast onward links to a number of European destinations which are presently not operated direct from Newcastle.

The latest version of a fuel burn measurement device launched to help recognize airline cost savings had been commenced by Lufthansa Systems. A web-based system will receive real-time aircraft presentation provided by the Lido electronic Aircraft Performance Monitoring (eAPM) System.

"And certainly while the industry focuses on creating greener aircraft and technologies that require large investments we have a product, that if used properly, can save money and reduce emissions through intelligent IT", Marc Szepan, senior vice-president, airline operations solutions says.

It is solely up to the airline to act on the information provided by Lido eAPM. Szepan says, "For example, if Lufthansa was to fly from Frankfurt to Moscow and our eAPM shows the aircraft is 1% more efficient than the manufacturer stated averages -this could save 250Kg of fuel. It is estimated that 1Kg of fuel creates 3.2Kg of carbon monoxide so there is an instant reduction in emission".

In the Economy Class of long-haul flights, Lufthansa has announced that personal in-seat video screens will be provided starting from the winter timetable. In view of simplifying the individual in-flight entertainment system, the test phase for this launch is being carried out in two of its flights to enable taking the wishes of the customers into account. It has been planned to use the in-seat sightscreens on two routes from Frankfurt to Detroit, Houston and Toronto from 15 August.

There are two alternative types of controls made available for the training program: navigation via a touch screen; and a control panel integrated into the armrest of the seat. Both the systems will allow individual access to the entire entertainment program. The best part of the system is that the menu functions can be operated in any one of the nine languages of German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The airline has arranged to conduct on-board surveys of the launch with the help of specially trained staff. These surveys are intended to help in the final selection of the control system for the in-seat screen.

At the successful completion of the test phase, the new in-seat screens will be launched in the long-haul fleet operated in the two said routes. The newly equipped economy class will be inaugurated by Lufthansa during November this year. The passengers can expect a real entertain bonanza by Lufthansa provided exclusively for their joy.