London: Cabin crews on standby with destinations revealed only hours before the flight, pilots put on simulators to keep up to date -- an airline restarting after the pandemic is a far cry from the clockwork precision of the pre-coronavirus world.
"Flexibility" is the top priority, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said last week, as the airline has "developed completely new procedures in flight and route planning".
As borders slammed shut to halt virus transmission, about 90 percent of passenger connections at the German airline fell away, leaving an "emergency" timetable comparable to the 1950s.
Daily passengers dwindled to 3,000 from the usual 350,000
With the peak of the crisis over in Europe, the airline is plotting its restart -- and the entire operation has been forced to act more nimbly to cope.
For Lufthansa crews, the inch-by-inch progress means "they have almost no fixed shifts any more, only on-call periods", Spohr said.
"They know how quickly they have to make it to the airport and that they should be nearby, and then they get a few hours' notice about where they're going."
"Methods we've always used to patch over problems have become the standard," he added.
10/06/20 AFP/India Today
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"Flexibility" is the top priority, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said last week, as the airline has "developed completely new procedures in flight and route planning".
As borders slammed shut to halt virus transmission, about 90 percent of passenger connections at the German airline fell away, leaving an "emergency" timetable comparable to the 1950s.
Daily passengers dwindled to 3,000 from the usual 350,000
With the peak of the crisis over in Europe, the airline is plotting its restart -- and the entire operation has been forced to act more nimbly to cope.
For Lufthansa crews, the inch-by-inch progress means "they have almost no fixed shifts any more, only on-call periods", Spohr said.
"They know how quickly they have to make it to the airport and that they should be nearby, and then they get a few hours' notice about where they're going."
"Methods we've always used to patch over problems have become the standard," he added.
10/06/20 AFP/India Today
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