Lufthansa has said it is committed to turning subsidiary BMI around despite a disclosure that the UK carrier lost £38 per passenger carried in the first half of the year.
The losses were disclosed in the small print of Lufthansa’s half year results, according to weekend press reports.
BMI suffered a total operating loss of £105 million in the first half, 29% worse than the same period in 2010. The airline, which holds about 10% of lucrative take off and landings slots at Heathrow, carried 2.75 million passengers, down 6.6% on the first six months of last year.
Lufthansa, reporting first half profits of £2.6 million, said: “In the light of the ongoing difficulties in British Midland’s key markets, an improvement on last year’s operating result looks unlikely at present.”
A spokesman for the German carrier told The Sunday Times: “Our focus is to turn BMI around. We are committed to BMI. Of course we want to provide profits, and there is a pressure for BMI to provide that, and everyone at BMI is working hard to do that.”
The airline suffered from uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and high oil prices in the first half of the year.