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Because of the Corona crisis, the state-supported Lufthansa Group remains deep in the red.
In the first quarter of this year, the company made a loss of 1.05 billion euros on sales that were 60 percent lower, as it reported in Frankfurt on Thursday.
The MDax Group was thus much more stable in 2021 than at the beginning of the Corona crisis in the first quarter of the previous year, which ended with twice as high a loss of 2.12 billion euros.
In addition to cost savings through downsizing, short-time work and shutdown jets, the Lufthansa Cargo cargo division returned to profitability with a record operating profit of EUR 314 million.
Lufthansa Technik was able to benefit from a strengthened maintenance business in the USA and Asia and delivered an operating profit of 16 million euros.
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr continues to expect a strong increase in demand from the summer.
"Encouraging signals, such as the announcement by the EU Commission that vaccinated passengers from the USA will be able to enter Europe again, confirm our confidence," he said, according to a press release.
With 3 million passengers, only a tenth of the previous number of passengers was achieved
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On the other hand, the group overturned its forecast that it would be able to fly up to 50 percent of its annual capacity from 2019 for the full year. Now, with a strong focus on tourist destinations, around 40 percent are expected, as it was said. In the first quarter, Lufthansa and the other group brands had flown only 21 percent of their 2019 offer and with 3 million passengers achieved only a tenth of the number of passengers at the time.
In the course of the crisis, however, the company got a better grip on the outflow of money in ongoing business. According to the report, it was 235 million euros per month in the starting quarter of 2021 and thus below the forecast of 300 million euros. In the second quarter, the value of the “cash burn” is expected to drop to 200 million euros per month. According to the announcement, operating expenses were reduced by 51 percent year-on-year to 4.0 billion euros. Almost every fifth job was cut, so that the number of employees fell by 19 percent to 111,262 over the year.
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter amounted to 10.6 billion euros compared to 11.1 billion euros at the end of 2020. The group received 9 billion euros in government aid from Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland last year, of which 5.4 billion euros Euros have not yet been used. A loan from the KfW Bank of one billion euros included in this has already been repaid, but on the other hand Lufthansa has also taken on new debts. At the Annual General Meeting on May 4, the board of directors intends to use a reserve resolution to approve a framework of 5.5 billion euros for new equity in order to be able to replace the expensive state investments if necessary.