MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Marketing Management: Lufthansa

Marketing Management: Lufthansa

Introduction

Management of business organizations is a vital aspect affecting its success in the industry. Without the use of an effective management, many companies, corporations and business organizations will not be able to cope with the changes and the challenges that come their way. Because of this importance, business organizations must be able to generate strategies and ways to improve their performance, to ensure its good performance and establish its pleasant reputation in the market. This paper discusses the different aspects in the Lufthansa Group, including its brand, global operation, current overall global strategy, management, and its key issues and problems. These aspects are important to take note of to be able to assess the overall performance of the whole business organization(Bruch Sattelberger 2001a).

Lufthansa It has been reported that Deutsche Lufthansa AG or more famously known as Lufthansa is the largest German airline and the second largest in Europe, derived its name from Luft or “air” in German, and Hansa, from Hanseatic League, which is the powerful medieval trading group (Bruch Ghoshal 2000). It is a founding member of Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance in the world, which was formed in 1997. In addition, the company was founded on January 6, 1926 in Berlin, following a merger between “Deutsche Aero Lloyd” or DAL and “Junkers Luftverkehr”, having an original brand name of Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft, and in 1933, Lufthansa has been used ever since. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lufthansa services flights from Germany to other countries in Europe, from Frankfurt to New York, to the Far East beyond Bangkok, Thailand, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and to the cities of Lagos, Nigeria, and to Johannesburg in South Africa ('' 2007). Moreover, Lufthansa was the first company to purchase the largest number of Boeing 737 aircrafts, and thus became the first foreign launch customer for a Boeing commercial plane. Its major fleet renovation and modernization program began on June 29, 1985, with an order for fifteen Airbus A320s, seven Airbus A300-600s, and ten Boeing 737-300s, and adopted a new corporate identity in 1988, having new livery and the redesigning of cabins, city offices and airport lounges (Bruch Sattelberger 2001a). At present, the airline has an extremely wide flight network, being able to offer direct flights from the United Kingdom to Germany cities including Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Cologne, and Hamburg, local flights within Germany, and offer expedient connections to foreign destinations such as North, Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern, Western and Central Europe (Shaw 2007). Because of the wide extent of Lufthansa's service, 53.4 million passengers were said to have traveled aboard the airline. Alongside the extent of Lufthansa's excellent service is its brand, which is the company's primary weapon in coping with the competition among other airline companies. The brand of Lufthansa is crucial as it serves as its trademark in the airline industry, for it does not only refer to products or services, but is the sum ...