Lufthansa: Stable traffic performance in April

Capacity, sales and load factor of the Passenger Airlines Group were virtually unchanged versus previous year in the month of April. The pricing developed positively, while it has been down year-on- year in March. March saw a higher share of leisure travel and April a higher share of business travel as the Easter holiday break fell entirely into March this year.

Lufthansa Passenger Airlines (incl. Germanwings) and SWISS moderately expanded their capacity (+1.6% and +0.4%) and recorded slightly higher sales (+1.0% and +1.6%). Austrian Airlines continued their significant cut in capacity (-11.1%) while sales declined similarly.

The regionally strong differences in capacity steering were continued. The Passenger Airlines Group cut capacity by 3.2 per cent in Europe,while the long-haul capacity in total was up year- on-year. Capacity was thereby increased on Americas routes (+6.1%) to match the good sales environment, capacity to Asia/Pacific was increased only moderately (+0.8%) and the offer to Middle East/Africa was reduced significantly (-6.5%).

Also in the freight business sales were almost on par with last year’s level (-0.6%). Lufthansa Cargo reduced capacity by 2.2 per cent and thus increased the cargo load factor by 1.1 percentage points (69.4%).