Earlier today The Lufthansa Group released its quarterly statistics for the first quarter of 2012. Overall passenger traffic was 4.8 percent higher than for the same period a year ago (including Lufthansa, SWISS, Germanwings and Austrian Airlines). 21.9 million passengers flew with the group and all the airlines in the group recongized an increase in passengers. Of the group, Austrian saw the biggest year over year improvement, with a 10.1% increase in passengers.
The press release below goes into further detail including a breakdown in load factors and cargo operations:
East Meadow, NY, April 12, 2012 – The airlines in the Lufthansa Group carried a total of 4.8 percent more passengers in the first quarter 2012 compared to the same time period last year. All in all, 21.9 million passengers opted to fly with Lufthansa, Germanwings, SWISS or Austrian Airlines. Besides lifting passenger figures in the first three months, all carriers in the Passenger Airline Group raised the average seat load factor of their aircraft. The seat load factor rose group-wide by 1.3 percentage points to 74.2 percent. Capacity was increased by 2.6 percent sales were up by 4.4 percent.
Lufthansa Passenger Airlines carried a total of 15.8 million passengers in the three-month term in 2012, an increase of 4.1 percent on the year-earlier level. Capacity was up by 1.6 percent, while sales increased by 3.5 percent. The seat load factor rose accordingly on the prior-year level by 1.3 percentage points to 73.8 percent. SWISS transported around 3.8 million passengers in the first quarter, Austrian Airlines carried close to 2.4 million passengers.
Volumes at Lufthansa Cargo fell by 9.3 percent in the first three months of the present year compared with a strong first quarter in 2011. During this term, the cargo carrier in the Lufthansa Group carried a total of 426,000 tonnes of freight and mail. Capacity was reduced by 8.2 percent against the level in the previous year. The load factor slightly fell
by 0.4 percentage points to 69.5 percent.
The business figures of the Lufthansa Group in the first three months of 2012 will be released on 3 May 2012 and will be available for download from 8.00 CET at www.lufthansa.com/investor-relations
