The Lufthansa Group has reported of strong booking numbers in the first quarter of 2023, and further expects another travel boom for the summer season.
Group revenue has reportedly increased by 40% to 7.0 billion euros, whilst the passenger numbers have increased to 22 million.
With this, a full year outlook has been confirmed, and will see the second quarter (Q2) results expected to exceed the previous 2019 levels.
Back on track
On the strong first quarter, Carsten Spohr, the CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, said the following: “The Lufthansa Group is back on track.”
“After a good first quarter in which we were able to significantly improve our result, we now expect a travel boom in the summer as well as a new record in our traffic revenue for the year as a whole.”
“On short- and medium-haul leisure-oriented routes, demand is already exceeding 2019 levels. The focus now is on once again offering our guests a consistent premium product experience on all group airlines.”
“Our guests are already benefiting from numerous product improvements, both on the ground and on board. The Lufthansa Group is well positioned to further strengthen its position among the top five airline groups in global competition.”
The Lufthansa Group significantly improved its results during the first quarter of 2023 compared to the year prior. This comes as demand for flight tickets, especially in the private travel segment.
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Pent-up demand has remained high following the Corona pandemic, as the booking numbers from the first quarter of the year clearly show.
The Group result for the first three months remains negative, reasoned normal seasonality. However, this year will see seasonality is even exacerbated by the faster recovery in the private travel segment compared to the business travel segment.
For Q1 2023, the Lufthansa Group did, as mentioned, increase its revenues by 40% to 7.0 billion euros. A two billion euro increase compared to the previous year and 5.0 billion euros.
Additionally, the Adjusted EBIT was -273 million euros, compared to the previous year which showed -577 million euros. Thus, the company achieved significantly greater results this first quarter than the first quarter of 2019.
Lufthansa Cargo earnings normalize
Despite the continuing weakened outlook in global air cargo markets, which have been driven by volatile economic conditions as well as the geopolitical situation in Europe, the cargo and logistics segment again generated an operating profit in the first quarter of 2023.
Understandably, this came in below the record result of the first quarter of 2022. The carrier’s maintenance and engineering arm Lufthansa Technik showed improved results in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same timeframe in 2022.
Naturally, the pent-up demand for air travel resulted in corresponding higher demand for maintenance and repair services, resulting in revenues rising accordingly.
Outlook
in the week of the global pandemic hiatus period, the overall demand for air travel remains strong. The airline is anticipating a very strong travel summer, especially for private travel. The most popular vacation destination in the summer is once again Spain.
For the second quarter of the year, the airline expects its capacity to increase to around 82 percent of the pre-crisis level.
Lufthansa’s full year projection for 2023 shows the Group still expecting an average passenger airline capacity of around 85 to 90 percent compared to 2019 levels.
