Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Lufthansa is about to have a grandchild

Well, that's kind of what it looks like. If your child has a child -right? It appears that Brussels is about to do a deal with Forrest Group to create a regional airline based in Congo. The company will initially fly a single scheduled service between Lubumbashi and Kinshasa and then extend to other regional routes.

This, in our view, is a good move by Brussels. The airline is a new name, but there are distinct links harking back to Sabena and Belgium's colonial past in Africa. Brussels could create something truly interesting if this airline works well. Having a regional hub to gather traffic means making Brussels (the city) an effective hub. Transfers to the rest of the EU via high speed rail are excellent. Transfers to North America are taken care of. Transfers to Asia, ditto. Plugging in small African markets to the rest of the global economy is very smart - especially when one considers the demand for resources growing. Congo is huge and mostly undeveloped. Opportunity knocks. Lufthansa should watch this and feel rather proud.

In other news:

• Remember the name Avient?


• BA gets customer support- as Unite loses it.


• Conference Board's downer


• South Africa's airlines - a view from Airbus

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