Lufthansa: May traffic figures affected by public holidays

As expected, the month of May was affected by changes in the dates of public holidays compared with last year. The number of flights declined. Passenger numbers, capacity, sales and load factor for the Passenger Airline Group all increased year on year. The yield in May was down on last year, in particular due to the public holidays, a deliberately higher proportion of Economy passengers and a continued weaker performance in Asia.

Lufthansa Passenger Airlines (including Germanwings) and SWISS increased their load factors (+0.2 pts. and +1.1 pts.) despite adding significant capacities (4.2% and 4.1%). Austrian Airlines continued its sharp cuts in capacity, however (-4.1%). The load factor rose by 0.4 percentage points.

Capacity continued to be managed differently according to region. In European traffic, the Passenger Airline Group kept its capacities stable (-0.1%). Long-haul capacity was higher than last year. The focus of capacity growth was on North America (9.1%). Capacity to Asia/Pacific was also increased (3.6%). Available capacity to the
Middle East/Africa was scaled back, however (-2.0%).

Sales in the cargo business were slightly down on the year (-0.6%). Lufthansa Cargo reduced its capacity by 3.1 per cent. The cargo load factor improved by 1.6 percentage points.