Germany's Lufthansa continues to recover amid travel boom

A Lufthansa plane. Photo by J Ph on Unsplash)

German airline Lufthansa said Wednesday it had reduced its net loss for the first quarter, as pent-up demand for travel is expected to further boost its bottom line in the upcoming summer months.

The group's net loss for the first three months of the year reached €467 million, an improvement from a loss of €584 million a year ago.

The negative result was mainly down to normal seasonality, the airline said, although strikes at German airports as well as costs for the planned expansion of flights in the summer also weighed on its earnings.

Lufthansa recently massively thinned out its summer flight offering and cancelled 34,000 flights due to the still-glaring staff shortage.

The airline industry "continues to suffer from bottlenecks and staff shortages, especially in Europe", a Lufthansa spokesperson told business publication WirtschaftsWoche. In addition to airlines, airports, ground handling services and air traffic control are particularly affected.

The cancellations should now reduce the workload and "allow for more stability for the whole system,” he added.

Increasing passenger numbers

Revenues rose by 40 percent to seven billion euros for the period, as 22 million passengers boarded Lufthansa group's planes between January and March.

"The continuously strong demand gives us confidence for the coming months. The summer travel season will provide a major contribution to achieving our targets for 2023," said Remco Steenbergen, Lufthansa's chief financial officer.

Capacity had already grown to 75 percent of the pre-Covid level in 2019 and was up 30 percent from the previous year.

For the full year, Lufthansa expects capacity to reach between 85 and 90 percent compared to 2019.

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