Lufthansa Group continues to make headway with SCORE earnings improvement programme

Lufthansa Group stated (19-Feb-2013) one year after the launch of the Group's earnings improvement programme, more SCORE projects are taking shape and SCORE now encompasses more than 2500 individual projects, about 800 of which have already been implemented. Details include:

• Programme target: SCORE aims to increase the Group's operating result sustainably by EUR1.5 billion by 2015. With the aid of SCORE, Lufthansa intends to increase its earnings from the passenger business by EUR920 million by 2015, of which EUR150 million will be realised through personnel related measures. Lufthansa AG executive board chairman and CEO Christoph Franz explained: "SCORE will strengthen the Lufthansa Group. We need to be strong if we are to make extensive investments for the benefit of our customers and play an active role in shaping change in the airline industry";
• Programme areas: The programme covers a range of areas, including the deployment of new aircraft, new cabin layouts and new approaches to flight planning, MRO and ground processes;
• Ground operations: Structures and processes in all ground operations in the Lufthansa passenger business, such as administrative and ground handling procedures, will be examined in detail;
• Administrative activities: The SCORE project will organise the pooling of administrative activities in the Finance, Procurement and HR areas and introduce more efficient administrative processes throughout the Lufthansa Group. For example, booking and settlement systems used in accounting and ordering procedures in Procurement will be harmonised across the Group. In particular, the Cologne, Norderstedt and Hamburg locations will be affected by changes in the administrative areal
• Head offices/office locations: Lufthansa is planning to close Lufthansa AG's Cologne head office, which has a staff of about 365, by the end of 2017. Within the same period, the location of Lufthansa Revenue Services GmbH (LRS) in Norderstedt would be wound up. Some 350 jobs will be affected. Eighty per cent of the approximately 200 Group administrative staff employed in the Financial Services unit in Hamburg will be transferred to a specialised service centre. These plans will be discussed over the coming weeks with employee representatives;
• Staff costs: Within the remit of SCORE, the Lufthansa Group plans to reduce its staffing costs worldwide by EUR500 million;
• Regional operations: As part of the restructuring of the regional segment of Lufthansa's passenger business, Lufthansa CityLine is examining the possibility of relocating its headquarters from Cologne to Munich in the light of considerations to merge Lufthansa CityLine's administrative headquarters and the airline's operational base in Munich. About 300 employees would be affected by this move. No decision has yet been made. [more - original PR - German]