Lufthansa To Cut 4,000 Jobs As Airline Turns To AI To Boost Efficiency 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Lufthansa announced plans to cut 4,000 roles on Monday as it aims to increase profitability and lean on AI to drive efficiency. The airline group said it will eliminate a total of 4,000 FTE, or full-time equivalent, roles worldwide by 2030. The company is targeting primarily admin roles, the majority of which will be affected at its home base in Germany, as part of a broader restructuring strategy.
"The Lufthansa Group is reviewing which activities will no longer be necessary in the future, for example due to duplication of work. In particular, the profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of artificial intelligence will lead to greater efficiency in many areas and processes," the company said in a release issued during its Capital Markets Day in Munich. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said earlier this year that artificial intelligence had partially helped to shrink the company's headcount by 40% down from 5,000 employees to almost 3,000.
"The Lufthansa Group is reviewing which activities will no longer be necessary in the future, for example due to duplication of work. In particular, the profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of artificial intelligence will lead to greater efficiency in many areas and processes," the company said in a release issued during its Capital Markets Day in Munich. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said earlier this year that artificial intelligence had partially helped to shrink the company's headcount by 40% down from 5,000 employees to almost 3,000.
Re:Oh for fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
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I also know that they have staff in every country because and this might seem strange they are a mother fucking airline and airlines travel internationally.
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It doesn't have to. First, it code-shares with United. Second, Lufthansa has many flights to and from the USA. Third, Lufthansa buys aircraft in the USA. Fourth, Germany exports a lot to the USA and if the orange shitgibbon puts roadblocks to that, the country where Lufthansa does fly domestically, gets problems with the economy.
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As noted in the summary, these are admin roles, less than 4% of their workforce, and given the timeframe it will be down to simply not replacing people when they leave in most cases.
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You know Lufthansa is not an American company right?
With Luftwaffes famous anti-competitiveness, monopolistic designs, lack of customer service or even giving a shit, it's easy to mistake them for one.
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They intentionally take diametrically opposed views on irrelevant social issues while doing everything to destroy the US economy, the global economy and enforce more authoritarianism on Americas.
This is nonsense. They are united in allowing the corporatocracy to destroy our life support system (the biosphere) but the Democrats want to keep the status quo and do it slow while the Republicans want to make it ultra-partisan and do it fast. The difference is one of degree and not nature, but there is still a difference, and it is still meaningful as one of them leads much more rapidly to destruction.
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The stock market isn't the economy
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"The company is targeting primarily admin roles, the majority of which will be affected at its home base in Germany, as part of a broader restructuring strategy."
tf does US politics have to do with this?
Re: Oh for fuck's sake (Score:2)
Efficiency (Score:2)
In particular, the profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of artificial intelligence will lead to greater efficiency in many areas and processes
If you measure efficiency solely by ratio of dollars in to dollars out, this is obviously going to be true... for a while. Sooner or later the errors will catch up and wipe out the cost savings.
Only a forecast (Score:2)
Not a certainty. If they're expecting LLMs to be reason for the cuts then they'll be disappointed.
2030: An Air Odyssey (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry Dave, I can't cross-check and secure the doors for takeoff.
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No it's more like:
Please cross cross check doors for takeoff.
Got it &emdash; all doors are secured! Please let me know if you have any further questions :smiling-face-emoji:
[At altitude] WTF THE FUCKING DOOR IS OPEN
You're absolutely right &emdash; sorry for incorrectly saying the door was open :embarrassed-face-emoji:. Would you like me to serve drinks now?
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It's this, 100%. This shit is not intelligent, it's just really good at saying yes to every request with a smile, then offering to do more. This is why C Suite loves it so much.
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It's not cabin crew, it's the ground staff who handle things like routing, flight crew assignments, customers and bookings, that sort of thing. Giving themselves 5 years to do it means they will probably mostly rely on turnover. They have over 100k employees.
company failing? (Score:1)
Keep this title for this News sites (Score:2)
Lufthansa (Score:2)
Translation (Score:2)
Lufthansa profits fall short of expectations, claims efficiency boost while firing workers to boost short term profits.
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Lufthansa profits fall short of expectations, claims efficiency boost while firing workers to boost short term profits.
If you've ever had to deal with Lufthansa's customer service, you would not be surprised if sacking them and replacing them with AI agents noticeably improves customer service entirely by accident.
And I don't think much of AI agents.
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Lufthansa profits fall short of expectations, claims efficiency boost while firing workers to boost short term profits.
If you've ever had to deal with Lufthansa's customer service, you would not be surprised if sacking them and replacing them with AI agents noticeably improves customer service entirely by accident.
And I don't think much of AI agents.
There is a reason I don't call D-Link customer service (or use their routers) anymore. I get where you are going...
The Slashdot article directly above this one (Score:2)
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The lack of awareness these days is astounding. It's like something in the water, vaccines, air, food, etc. is just turning a lot of people into narcissists.
Who are they replacing? (Score:2)
I recently flew with Lufthansa (through a code-share with United), from the U.S. internationally...any change to a ticket or flight option or seat modification requires interacting with their horrible, terrible, online chat bots and ticketing system. No humans in sight. And even talking to a real human at the check-in desk is no help, they basically tell you, "I can't do anything, you have to go online to your account and make the
AI's greatest value thus far (Score:2)
...is that of giving feckless executives excuses to cut headcount to boost stock price a bit and therefore their own income. To be clear, firms shouldn't just stack themselves with warm bodies for no reason, but there is -0- indication that AI is contributing anything today except for meeting summaries and some coding "auto-completes". Are these excess so prescient they know how AI is going to unfold? It's bollocks.
Or maybe wait until the AI is implemented and working as advertised and then start lay