German flag carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG yesterday posted a third-quarter net loss of 2 billion euros (US$2.35 billion) as it prepares for a “hard and challenging” winter amid COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
Europe’s largest airline said that it would fly a maximum of 25 percent of normal capacity from last month through next month, and expects to burn through 350 million euros per month.
“We are now at the beginning of a winter that will be hard and challenging for our industry,” Lufthansa chief executive officer Carsten Spohr said in a statement.
Photo: EPA-EFE
After its revenue crashed in the first wave of the pandemic, the airline was in June propped up by the German government, which pumped in 9 billion euros of liquidity for a 25 percent stake.
However the return of restrictions on movement in the country, alongside even stricter lockdowns in countries such as France and Britain, has “significantly worsened” the outlook for air travel, Lufthansa said.
Spohr urged the introduction of “widespread rapid tests” for COVID-19 to reduce the need for lengthy quarantines, which airlines say are deterring travelers.
The airline said that it remains on track to return to positive operating cash flow next year — but only if the “situation allows for an increase in capacity to around 50 percent of precrisis levels.”
In the three months to September, the carrier reported a net loss of 2 billion euros, compared with a 416 million euro profit in the same period last year, as it carried just 20 percent of its usual passenger numbers.
Losses were reduced due to “strict cost savings and the expansion of our flight program” in the summer months, Spohr said.
Lufthansa had previously warned that 30,000 jobs were under threat as it scaled down its winter schedule to levels not seen since the 1970s and yesterday said that 27,000 full-time positions were “surplus.”
The airline’s board said it aims to find agreements to “limit the number of redundancies required” through short-time working and pay cuts.
Lufthansa, which includes subsidiaries Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines, as well as Eurowings, hopes to remain “the leading European airline group” after an “inevitable restructuring,” Spohr said.
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