The recovery in ticket demand makes Lufthansa even more optimistic. According to a statement on Tuesday, CEO Carsten Spohr considers an operating profit (adjusted EBIT) of around 1.5 billion euros this year to be possible – it is the third increase in the forecast since the summer. The group is now selling its tickets for more money than before the 2019 pandemic. The freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo and the maintenance division Lufthansa Technik are heading for record results. The Lufthansa share price rose by almost five percent.
In the spring, Spohr did not even want to promise black numbers for 2022 after the group had suffered an operating loss of more than 2.3 billion euros in the second Corona year 2021. As business recovered in the following months, he first announced an operating profit of more than half a billion euros in the summer – and doubled his forecast in October to more than one billion euros.
Only a few experts had expected that it could be 1.5 billion. Industry expert Alexander Irving from the analysis company Bernstein assumes that the profit expectations of the market should now increase. He sees the higher forecast as a sign of robust travel demand, from which Lufthansa’s competitors should also benefit.
In October and November, the results developed better than expected, Lufthansa reported further. In the passenger business, average yields are well above the pre-crisis level, and the booking situation points to a continuation of the positive development.
While Lufthansa is unlikely to return to the pre-crisis level in the passenger business for the year as a whole, things are going even better in the freight and maintenance business. Lufthansa Cargo is expected to surpass the previous operating record profit of 1.5 billion euros from 2021 this year. Lufthansa Technik is also expecting a record result for 2022. Lufthansa wants to present its annual figures on March 3rd.
