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The Lufthansa Group increased its total revenues for the first nine months of the year by 12.1 per cent to €26,761 million – the company’s best-ever nine-month result.
“We achieved another record earnings result in the first nine months of this year,” said Carsten Spohr, chairman, Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
“A result that gives us the investment and growth capabilities we need to play an active part in the consolidation of the European airline market, and to continue to invest in the future of our company.”
Traffic revenues rose 14.4 per cent to €21,360 million, while the key performance indicator of Adjusted EBIT increased by €883 million to €2,560 million.
As a result, the Lufthansa Group’s result for the period was a further substantial improvement on its previous record level of 2016.
The good nine-month result is attributable primarily to continuing positive business trends at the group’s airlines.
Despite increasing overall capacity for the period by 11.7 per cent, the group’s air carriers improved their aggregate nine-month seat load factor by 2.1 percentage points.
Unit costs excluding fuel and currency factors were reduced by 0.8 per cent in the same period, though a slight 0.2-per-cent increase was recorded for the third quarter mainly due to provisions for higher profit sharing payments of 1.1 percentage-points.
The group’s airlines posted higher-than-prior-year seat load factors and yields for all key traffic regions.
Unit revenues excluding currency factors were up two per cent for the first three quarters and 4.5 per cent for the third-quarter period.
Net profit for the first nine months of 2017 amounted to €1,853 million, broadly in line with a prior-year result that had felt the €713 million positive impact of certain non-recurring items.
Cash flow from operating activities increased €1,405 million to €4,459 million, thanks largely to the good result and higher advance bookings.
“Despite higher investments, we almost doubled our free cash flow and reduced our net financial debt by over 80 per cent in the first-nine-month period,” said Ulrik Svensson, chief officer finance, Deutsche Lufthansa.
“Particularly encouraging is that all our Group’s airlines were able to raise their margins.
“The positive economic environment played its part in this.
“But these results also – and above all – reflect all our hard work over the past few years, which are now bearing fruit.
“We now need to continue working to consistently lower our costs and further creating the financial strength we need for the future.”
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