Lufthansa not afraid of Ryanair growth plans as tough year looms

Lufthansa has said it is not overly concerned with Ryanair’s aggressive growth plans for the German market and that it has the quality and competitive offering via its Eurowings subsidiary to compete with the Irish carrier.

Earlier this year, Ryanair targeted Germany as one of its key European expansion areas and said it hoped to grow its share of the market from 5% to around 20% within five years. It has since said it is expanding there, mainly through Cologne and Berlin, at a faster-than-anticipated rate.

However, speaking in Dublin yesterday at the formal announcement of Lufthansa’s expanded services to and from Ireland, the German carrier’s European spokesman, Boris Orgursky, said competition was part of the business and Lufthansa was seeing it [in Germany] from a number of carriers, adding “we’re used to it and we will deal with it”.