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Germany’s Lufthansa continues to recover amid travel boom

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.

Published: 3 May 2023 13:51 CEST

Lufthansa

A Lufthansa plane. Photo by J Ph on Unsplash)

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.

READ ALSO: Will Germany’s airports face travel chaos again this summer?

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.

READ ALSO: Germany’s Lufthansa to hire 20,000 employees as recovery gathers pace

Member comments

Anonymous - 4 May 2023 at 12:01 CEST

Living near Frankfurt means a Lufthansa monopoly and Lufthansa is taking advantage – at a recent travel industry conference Lufthansa was asked when they will reduce prices to more acceptable levels – the response was “When people stop paying those high prices” Frankfurt needs Ryanair back to moderate, but the airport colludes with their biggest customer

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Which German train routes are affected by France arson attacks?

France’s high-speed rail network was hit by a series of “connected” arson attacks on Friday that severely disrupted the transport system hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

Some 800,000 passengers have been affected, train operator SNCF revealed.

“This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network,” SNCF told AFP, adding that many routes would have to be cancelled and the situation would last, “at least all weekend while repairs are conducted”.

The attacks not only affect those travelling to Paris for the Olympics, but also Parisian holidaymakers trying to leave the city on one of the busiest summer weekends.

In Germany, the impact has also been felt on cross-border routes in the southwestern states of Rhineland Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg.

READ ALSO: What are my rights if a train is delayed or cancelled in Germany?

Speaking to SWR on Friday, a Deutsche Bahn spokesperson revealed that all express train connections from Germany to France had also been badly affected.

DB is in “close dialogue” with their French colleagues at SNCF, they added.

Here are the lines affected as of early afternoon on Friday:

Stuttgart – Karlsruhe – Paris: The ICE and TGV connections between Stuttgart and Paris via Karlsruhe are severely delayed. Travellers can currently expect delays of up to one hour. According to Deutsche Bahn’s traffic information, at least two connections between Stuttgart and Paris are cancelled.
Mannheim – Karlsruhe – Paris: The connections here are significantly delayed.
Mannheim – Kaiserslautern – Paris: According to Deutsche Bahn, this TGV and ICE connection will be completely cancelled on Friday.

According to Deutsche Bahn, there are delays and cancellations on these western routes because the trains in France will have to be rerouted large distances. However, the rail operator doesn’t expect there to be a major impact on other domestic routes in Germany.

Passengers affected can stay updated by keeping an eye on the Deutsche Bahn website and anyone with a ticket between Germany and France due to travel today can rebook free of charge.

Could similar attacks happen in Germany?

That’s the opinion of Germany’s leading intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BV), who released a statement on Friday warning of heightened threats.

According to the BV, there is a “serious risk” of attacks on critical infrastructure in Germany at present, both from hostile states and from terrorist groups.

READ ALSO: How prepared is Germany in the event of a military attack?

Recent threat analyses have shown that there are numerous vulnerabilities that could serve as gateways for attacks, BV warned. Foreign intelligence services would be well-placed to exploit these in order to carry out acts of sabotage in Germany.

While threats from hostile actors are nothing new, the risk level has increased in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine back in 2022.

Since then, there has been a significant uptick in the number of attacks – and attempted attacks – carried out in Europe and on German soil.

For more information and the latest on the France attacks, check out our coverage on The Local France:

READ ALSO: Which services are affected by arson attacks on France’s train network?

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