Lufthansa, Our Guardian Of The Environment And Living Wage…

The magnanimous and altruistic Lufthansa CEO, Carsten Spohr, cares so much about the environment and living wages that he wants to ban cheap flights within Europe. What a saint!

I’ve been traveling around the world and put this story on the back-burner for a few days, but do want to address it now. Speaking to Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, Spohr said 10EUR flights are:

…economically, ecologically, and politically irresponsible. Flights for less than 10EUR shouldn’t exist.

Bravo. What a caring man. Let’s all applaud this champion of the common man and Mother Earth and support Lufthansa’s effort to keep Ryanair and EasyJet out of Germany (and all of Europe). After all, those cheap flights encourage people to fly, meaning people are encouraged to pollute. And to offer fares so cheap means that workers are not being paid enough. There can be no other explanation.

Instead, we should all pay triple to quadruple to fly on Lufthansa, which pays their workers so well they never strike…and whose Airbus and Boeing fleet is oh so much more fuel efficient than their competition.

I do trust you picked up on my sarcasm.

As One Mile at a Time asks, where is Lufthansa’s campaign encouraging its full-fare business class passengers from having a virtual meeting, rather than flying out to meet face-to-face?

This is pure hypocrisy on the part of the Lufthansa CEO, who is understandably anxious that his low-cost Eurowings division has largely failed and that Ryanair and EasyJet are growing in Germany, a market Lufthansa once took for granted.

Spohr should know there really are no such thing as 10EUR fares, once credit card fees, baggage fees, priority boarding fees, seat assignment fees, and a la carte pricing for food and drink onboard are factored in. It is simply a different business model than Lufthansa.

Furthermore, Spohr should know that Ryanair has a younger and more fuel efficient fleet than Lufthansa.

Perhaps Spohr is indignant that these budget carriers have taken advantage of advantageous tax arrangements to avoid paying as much tax as Lufthansa. I do not see how Ryanair can be blamed for operating out of Dublin.

Are you sensing a pattern?

CONCLUSION

Spohr did give me a good laugh, but that was followed by shaking my head in disbelief. It really takes a certain amount of superciliousness to say what he said. While I hope his words were taken out of context, that does not appear to be the case.

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