Profits up for Lufthansa but Bmi makes a loss

17th Mar 2011

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A recovery in demand for long haul travel helped the Lufthansa group raise operating profit fivefold to €876 million in 2010.

The German company’s grouping of passenger airlines achieved an operating profit of 436 million euros, with Lufhansa itself contributing €382 million, against a loss of €107 million in 2009.

The overall result of the Passenger Airline Group also included an operating loss of €145 million from Bmi and €66 million from Austrian Airlines. “Both airlines continue to consistently implement the introduced restructuring measures,” the German parent said.

Germanwings also recorded an operating loss of €39 million whereas SWISS tripled the previous year’s figure to record an operating profit of €298 million.

The group said it compensated the negative one-off effects, such as the hard winter in January and December, a pilots’ strike and the airspace lockdown as a result of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud, mainly due to a rise in demand and sales in international passenger and freight traffic.

The successful implementation of cost reduction measures in all of the group’s business segments and the “realisation of synergy potentials” within the passenger airline group also helped. 

Chairman and chief executive Christoph Franz described 2010 as “eventful and challenging”.

“We can be highly satisfied with this result; it shows that we have learned from the crises of the past,” he said. “We maintained our financial and operational flexibility as well as our usual cost discipline and convincingly mastered the past year – not least thanks to a strong team performance by all of our staff and management on the ground and in the air. And most importantly, Lufthansa has widened the gap to its competitors.”

But he added: “2011 will not be a walk in the park. The headwinds of competition are becoming rougher on the European routes and long-haul routes to Asia and the Americas. The German air traffic tax hits the German and European airlines, as well as their passengers, where it hurts. The fuel prices are at record levels. And we are not immune to the consequences of political unrest, terrorist attacks and natural disasters.”