The Germans are running scared just like the Canadians.
They have a good enough position within the Star Alliance and the main battles are fought at home against the likes of Air Berlin and Lyin'air.
Without the help of the government in a open and "fair" market.
Unlike EK, LH's product is sub-standard (nothing special or unique).
Having worked for LH for almost 20 years and some years for EK, I think I can give a better assessment of the "qualities":
LH has an outstanding training, maintenance and operations standard, while EK is a dog and pony show compared to that!
Let's start with EK's new shiny aircrafts with meter long lists of deferred items, pilots entering a cockpit while the APU is running and no wobbly "mechanic" is there to explain why some CBs are pulled or popped etc...
The MCC is always happy to send aircrafts to Germany to have problem items fixed that the own maintenance is not able to solve.
The flight operation is a complete joke run mainly by leftover Poms and some locals like the clueless malicious clown AAR...and there are high fives at the OCC when the on time rate reaches 50%.
Ground operations managed to lose my bags at least twice a year while that never happened with LH ever. Lots of fun with the EK "lost" baggage department.
Why do you think there are almost no ex LH pilots working for EK?
(I know only of one who came for family reasons)
Even pilots coming from LH subsidiaries are truly shocked after they went through what EK calls training!
All that would cost money that EK invests rather in the only inventive
PR and marketing departments.
The inflight entertainment is indeed world class (when it works properly) but I personally don't need that anyway. The service from the mostly 3rd world cabin crew is IMHO overrated and on the way down and some of the cabins of "older" B777 and A330 look more like Biman or AirIndia to me...
As a full paying pax don't get me started with the "help" you get from their hotlines etc. so I am preferring SIA now with a truly great service and comparable prices.
They are part of an alliance, the real way of fair global business...working together worldwide and leave the local markets to the local partners....like in a real partnership.
EK would never be part of that, they are the greedy predators without any interest in a partnership...
And what a joke is that fuel price issue? Achmed pays from his airline to his fuel supplier...left pocket to right pocket
!
Anyway...hope my fellow Krauts will kick their greedy a$$es...
