The Lufthansa Group today presented its financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2022.

«The Lufthansa Group achieved a very strong result in the third quarter with an operating profit of over one billion euros, thus demonstrating its regained profitability», commented Carsten Spohr, the company’s CEO. «All business segments, passenger airlines as well as logistics and MRO, contributed to this success», he added.

Spohr noted that demand for air travel continues to rise and said Germany’s largest airline «has economically left the pandemic behind and is looking optimistically into the future».

According to the company’s report, the continued high demand for leisure travel is particularly noteworthy. However, the corporate traveller segment also continued to recover and has already reached 70% of pre-pandemic levels.

Lufthansa Group third quarter 2022 key financial and operating results

• Total revenues reached 10.1 billion euros, an increase of 93% compared to the same period last year. Between July and September 2021, the company had recorded revenues of 5.2 billion.
• Net income reached 809 million euros, a significant increase compared to 72 million in the same quarter of 2021.
• Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were 1.1 billion euros, including the impact of the strikes last summer which, according to the company, generated losses of 70 million euros. In the third quarter of 2021, it had been 251 million euros.
• The operating margin rose to 11.2%. In the same period last year, the company had reported an operating margin of 4.8%.
• Between July and September, the Lufthansa Group’s airlines carried a total of 33 million passengers, around thirteen million more than in the third quarter of 2021.
• The average load factor reached 86%, a figure similar to the usual ones before the start of the pandemic. The company noted that occupancy in the higher classes of service exceeded that of 2019.
• Lufthansa Technik benefited from growth in demand for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services and has already recovered 90% of its pre-pandemic activity.
• Net debt continued to decline between July and September: it reached 6.2 billion euros at the end of the quarter. The company had ended the previous year with a net debt of 9 billion euros.

Third quarter balances and projections for the last three months of the year

Lufthansa Group expects demand for air travel to remain strong in the coming months and average yields to remain high. Despite the usual seasonal slowdown, the company maintains its projection of achieving operating profits between October and December.

For the fourth and final quarter of the year, the company expects the group’s passenger airlines to offer 80% of their 2019 capacity.

In the final annual balance sheet, the company expects the logistics segment to exceed last year’s record level: based on the current situation and projections in the short term, Lufthansa Technik will generate a higher profit than in 2021. In addition, the company aims to achieve an adjusted free cash flow of more than 2 billion euros in 2022.

«A healthy balance sheet is the basis for profitable growth, especially in economically challenging times», said Remco Steenbergen, CFO of Lufthansa Group. «Thanks to our strong cash flows, our refinancing needs will remain low in the coming quarters», he stressed. «With disciplined capacity management, our yield focus and strict control of spending, we are confident that we will continue to be able to compensate well for inflation-related cost increases», he concluded.

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