Fraport and Lufthansa have formed a new joint venture called FraAlliance to improve the quality of products and services at Frankfurt Airport in Germany.
Each company holds a 50% share in the new venture. They intend to use FraAlliance to strengthen their existing cooperation on strategic and operational matters at Frankfurt Airport and thus plan to deepen their long-standing partnership in relation to enhancing services at Frankfurt Airport’s Terminal 1.
One initial outcome of the extended partnership is the availability of real-time updates for aviation security checkpoints in the Lufthansa app. This enables Lufthansa passengers to see checkpoint waiting times in Frankfurt via the app, enabling them to take these times into account when planning their schedule and travel arrangements. In another project, passenger flows have been analyzed to reduce transfer times for around a million passengers per year by removing unnecessary, duplicate security checks.
The FraAlliance team is staffed equally by both companies. The new joint venture is being co-led by Dirk Schusdziara, who was previously senior vice president of commercial affairs at Fraport’s airside and terminal management, corporate safety and security central unit, and Jörg Harnisch, who was previously head of lean project management and COE process improvement at the Lufthansa Group.
The joint venture seeks to improve business development and operations, customer experience, infrastructure, intermodality and sustainability. Improvements are to be made by analyzing and optimizing processes in terminal operations, as well as by taking a joint, customer-focused approach to product development. The goal is to bring about a journey-wide enhancement of processes and product offerings for flights while boosting the competitiveness of the airport.
Pierre Dominique Prümm, executive director of aviation and infrastructure at Fraport, said, “With this joint venture, we’re creating a highly responsive and effective team that can pursue areas of mutual interest and continue improving passenger services. It’s an important signal for the medium- and long-term prospects of Frankfurt Airport.”
Jens Ritter, CEO of Lufthansa Airlines, commented, “We want to offer our customers a reliable, punctual and first-rate travel experience. The joint venture will allow us to place stronger and more targeted emphasis on the projects required to realize these aims. The new partnership at our Frankfurt hub will deliver significant added value for our customers by implementing innovative, future-focused measures.”