The sky's the limit for Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chief executive of Lufthansa. Not only is the German airline taking control of bmi, the British carrier, on January 12, but it also wants to swoop for Austrian Airlines, and SAS, the Scandinavian airline.

Mr Mayrhuber, 60, who has been running Lufthansa since 2001, is buying up rivals across Europe with a speed and certainty that Willie Walsh - his counterpart at British Airways, who is still trying for a merger with Iberia after months of negotiations - can only dream of.

Air France-KLM, Lufthansa's other European rival, has also been left reeling by Mr Mayrhuber's speed of turn. He may soon head Europe's largest airline if Lufthansa's takeover of Austrian Airlines is approved by the European Union, leap-frogging Air France-KLM. Lufthansa agreed to acquire the state's 41.6 per cent stake in Austrian Airlines on December 5, paving the way for a full takeover. Earlier this month, the Austrian Government gave its approval to a deal that will see it take on some of the carrier's debt.

Lufthansa has indicated that its biggest task for 2009 will be to turnaround struggling bmi, which Mr Mayrhuber invested in partly to get hold of the airline's lucrative Heathrow landing slots. He said this month that he would not make any decisions about acquiring the remaining 20 per cent of bmi until he has turned the airline into a profit-making carrier.

“Afterwards, we can look at long-term strategic options, which are offered us through bmi's strong positioning at London's Heathrow airport,” he said.

Lufthansa's chief also boasted that his airline does not have financing concerns, unlike some of its rivals.

Reportedly also on Mr Mayrhuber's 2009 to-do list is a long-term buyout of SAS.

Lufthansa and SAS have been in on-off merger talks since the autumn, but the pair never quite got there. The situation is complicated by the fact that the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark together hold 50 per cent of the Scandinavian carrier, so Mr Mayrhuber must secure their approval.

And in the background are two even bigger fish: Alitalia and Virgin Atlantic.

Lufthansa has been vying with Air France-KLM to strike an alliance with the bankrupt Italian flag-carrier and, in the medium term, Sir Richard Branson's British airline looks like an excellent prospect for a strategic alliance.