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The aviation crisis as a result of the pandemic has also set Lufthansa Technik, headquartered in Hamburg, back significantly.
The world market leader for the maintenance, overhaul and conversion of commercial aircraft posted a loss in operating business (EBIT) of 383 million euros last year; in 2019, the company had generated a profit of 463 million euros.
In 2020, sales fell by 43 percent to around 3.7 billion euros.
“2020 was the most difficult year in our company's history so far.
And yet we can close it with a certain degree of confidence, ”said CEO Johannes Bussmann on Monday when the annual figures were presented.
“Our broad product portfolio and our international network have saved us from even worse.
We have been able to retain almost all of our customers.
Given the circumstances, we made the best of this year. "
Johannes Bussmann, CEO of Lufthansa Technik
Source: Pressebild.de/Bertold Fabricius
As a result of the crisis, Lufthansa Technik reduced the number of its employees by around 3,000 worldwide in 2020 compared to 2019, including 1,900 temporary workers.
The company's own workforce worldwide shrank by around five percent to 22,745 at the end of last year.
This includes around 8,000 employees at the Hamburg location.
Bussmann said it is conceivable that the number of jobs worldwide will continue to fall by up to 1,000 this year.
But that depends on the analysis that is currently ongoing at Lufthansa Technik.
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Alongside Airbus and major supplier companies such as Diehl Aviation, Lufthansa Technik is the most important player in Hamburg as the third largest location for the civil aircraft industry.
Before the pandemic, around 300 companies and institutions had around 42,000 permanent employees in the aviation industry in the Hamburg metropolitan region.
At the Airbus aircraft yard in Finkenwerder, around 1,000 of the 15,000 employees previously accepted offers to leave the company from November to February.
The group had agreed with the works council and the IG Metall union that in return for employees who leave the company voluntarily at the locations in Germany, there will be no redundancies until the end of 2023.
Jobs are also likely to be cut at the numerous aviation supplier companies in and around Hamburg.
In order to overcome the crisis, Lufthansa Technik is rationalizing its own processes.
Among other things, the number of business areas has been reduced from eight to five.
The company is also focusing even more strongly than before on innovation in key areas such as digitization, the use of hydrogen in aviation and materials research.
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Among other things, Lufthansa Technik is one of the shareholders of the Center for Applied Aviation Research (ZAL) in Finkenwerder.
The company also finances individual research projects in the industry in Hamburg.
"We remain invested and committed to the ZAL," said Bußmann, "that is the most important anchorage for us at the Hamburg location in the connection to our industrial partners."
Digitization is a key driver for the entire industry to find its way out of its biggest crisis to date, said Philip Mende, who is responsible for digitization and programs such as the Aviatar platform at Lufthansa Technik.
There have been no fundamentally new developments in aircraft models or engines in recent years.
Greater digitalization of their processes therefore offers airlines the fastest way to reduce their costs.
"On board most passenger aircraft, for example, the technical logbooks are still kept in paper format today," said Mende.
“Digital logbooks offer considerable opportunities to make the relevant processes faster and easier.” Overall, the aviation industry “is still at the very beginning of the digitization journey.
We at Lufthansa Technik want to stay at the forefront. "
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From the point of view of CEO Bußmann, the international market for the maintenance, recovery and retrofitting of commercial aircraft will probably not reach the level of 2019 again until 2024.
The changed flight behavior of the passengers will also change the composition of the fleets, he said.
According to analysts, a large part of the currently decommissioned wide-body aircraft of types such as the Airbus A380 and A340 or Boeing 747 and 777 will not return to scheduled service.
At the same time, smaller models such as the Airbus A320 family would increasingly force their way into the market for medium-sized aircraft as a replacement for the Airbus A330 or the Boeing 757. For this change in the market, said Bussmann, “we see ourselves through our close networking the manufacturers of aircraft and engines are in a very good starting position ”.