The corporate travel recovery for Lufthansa Group—which
includes Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings—continues
to lag its leisure segment, with business passenger numbers still around 30
percent lower compared with 2019, Lufthansa CFO Remco Steenbergen said during a
Thursday morning earnings call.
The company, however, sees opportunity for a “nice jump
to corporate” because of its Asian network expansion. “Asia,
historically, is a part of our network with the highest corporate shares,”
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said. “We’re growing more into Asia this year
than in any other destination or region. So, I think we [will] see a miracle,
whatever you want to call it, effect on corporate in that regard.”
Steenbergen projects the corporate segment might get up to
80 percent of 2019 level in 2024
Still, Spohr admitted that “pent-up demand is not going
to jump out of the bottle and said that the corporate segment would “come
up slowly.” He noted that working from home is being reduced, and video
conferences are reduced “further and further and turned into real
meetings, so I think this trend will be there.”
Lufthansa Q4, FY2023 Metrics
Lufthansa reported fourth quarter 2023 revenue of nearly
€8.8 billion (US$9.7 billion), a 5 percent increase year over year. Total 2023
revenue was more than €35.4 billion, representing a 15 percent increase over
2022 and the company’s third-best full-year result in its history, according to
Lufthansa.
Full-year 2023 passenger revenue was €28.3 billion, a 24
percent increase year over year. The Group’s passenger airlines had high demand
for service to and from North America, according to the company, and for the
first time, all passenger airlines in the company reported an operating
profit—with Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings reporting
record results.
The company’s net profit for the fourth quarter was €67
million, down from €307 million a year prior. Full-year 2023 profit was nearly
€1.7 billion, more than double the €791 million reported in 2022. Lufthansa
reported 123 million passengers for 2023, a 20 percent increase year over year,
and capacity for 2023 increased 14 percent from 2022, but was still at about 84
percent of 2019 levels, according to the company.
Lufthansa during the fourth quarter expanded
its “green fares” to international routes, and also reported that
an increasing number of companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to
offset flight-related CO2 emissions. In 2023, more than 1,500 companies
worldwide invested in sustainable aviation fuel with the Lufthansa Group.
[email protected] (Donna M. Airoldi)
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