The strong demand for flights, high ticket prices and, above all, record business in air freight brought Lufthansa back into the black. The group has even more ambitious goals for the future.
After the massive losses during the corona pandemic, Lufthansa made a profit again last year. The adjusted operating profit amounted to 1.5 billion euros after a deficit of 1.7 billion euros in the previous year, as announced by the aviation group.
The strong demand for flights from travelers and in air freight brought the airline 2022 almost twice as much revenue as in the previous year at 32.8 billion euros. “Lufthansa is back. In just one year we have achieved an unprecedented financial turnaround,” said Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr. Demand has continued to be high throughout the year. Ticket prices are said to remain around a fifth above the pre-crisis level.
Once again, however, the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo was the largest source of profit with a record result of 1.6 billion euros, while the passenger airlines still made a loss of 300 million euros due to the weak first half of the year. High costs of 555 million euros to compensate customers for flight cancellations and delays in the summer, when there was a shortage of staff everywhere in aviation, also had an impact.
The airlines of the group – in addition to Lufthansa and the holiday airline Eurowings, the Swiss Swiss, Austrian Airlines (AUA) and Brussels Airlines – carried a total of 102 million passengers in 2022, more than twice as many as in the previous year. Swiss and AUA were the first to make a profit again. The bottom line was that the MAX Group was also in the black: the net profit was 791 million euros. Analysts had expected 875 million euros.
In the current year, the recovery back to the pre-crisis level of 2019 should continue: The adjusted operating result should increase significantly and a big step towards the goal for 2024 should be taken. The return target of eight percent corresponds to more than three billion euros in operating profit, Lufthansa explained. The available capacity at the passenger airlines is to be increased to 85 to 90 percent from 72 percent last year.
At the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo, the largest source of profit during the Corona crisis, sales and earnings are expected to decline after a special boom. Transport prices in aviation had risen sharply during the corona pandemic – last year they were more than twice as high as in 2019. This is now being reversed with the weaker economy and growing freight capacities worldwide. Freight prices are falling, but according to Lufthansa, there will be no slump to the pre-crisis level.
The competition is also optimistic: the British Airways and Iberia mother IAG took an operating result of 1.8 billion to 2.3 billion euros before after 1.2 billion in the past year. Air France-KLM is counting on a further recovery and wants to increase the number of seats almost to the capacity of 2019 after 85 percent in 2022. Europe’s largest low-cost airline Ryanair wants to sell 168 million tickets this year, significantly more than before the pandemic.
