Lufthansa has forecast a “record summer for holiday travel” following a “significant increase in demand” despite recording a loss of €584 million for the first quarter of the year.
Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa Group chief executive, said: “The past few weeks have clearly shown how great people’s desire to travel is. New bookings are increasing week to week especially for vacation and leisure travel.”
Spohr noted the group was “still burdened by high [Covid] infection rates” at the beginning of the year and blamed low seat-load factors at the beginning of the year and rising fuel costs for the group loss, before customer demand “started to recover strongly in March”.
Group carriers Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings operated 57% of their 2019 capacity across the three months and plan to operate 75% in the quarter to June, rising to 95% this summer on short haul routes and 85% on long haul.
Lufthansa reported group airlines “are offering more choice of tourist destinations than ever before. Destinations in the US, South America and the Mediterranean are in particularly high demand.”
It suggested “more people” would fly on holiday with Lufthansa Group airlines “than ever before” and reported that in addition to “high tourist demand, business travel also recorded an increasing recovery”.
However, the group forecast business travel would recover only to “around 70% of its pre-crisis level” by the end of the year.
It also noted: “Uncertainties remain. The development of fuel costs, in particular, cannot be accurately forecast.
“The effects of the war in Ukraine and the significant increase in inflation on consumer behaviour cannot be predicted precisely.”
Chief financial officer Remoc Steenbergen said: “Demand has recovered faster and stronger than expected in recent weeks.” But he added: “We must pass through rising costs to customers.”
Group revenue doubled year on year to €5.4 billion as passenger numbers more than quadrupled to 13 million despite an operating loss of €640 million.
The group’s net debt fell from €9 billion at the end of last year to €8.3 billion at the end of March, and liquidity rose from €9.4 billion to €9.9 billion, with Lufthansa announcing it would terminate its state-backed loan facility in Switzerland of 1.5 billion Swiss francs.