Lufthansa upbeat on bookings after vaccine boost
Deutsche Lufthansa AG
€6.66
14:35 25/04/24
Lufthansa said bookings for next summer had tripled after the imminent approval of a Covid-19 vaccine strengthened travellers' confidence.
Xetra DAX
17,855.05
14:30 25/04/24
The airline's chief executive Carsten Spohr said he expected business to reach half of 2019 levels in 2021 after a slump in 2020, Reuters reported, citing German media.
"The fact that people have also already reserved flights for the Easter period shows how confident they are," Spohr said. "I expect that next year we will be able to achieve half the level of 2019 again on average, and for the summer and autumn we calculate up to 70%."
He said Lufthansa had drawn down a third of €9bn in state aid and that he hoped the German government would reduce its 20% stake from 2023. He said the airline had only spent a small part of the €3bn it had drawn down.
Lufthansa expects to stop losing cash in 2021 and hopes to be profitable from 2022, he told Wirtschaftswoche magazine. But he said Lufthansa would have to cut 1,000 pilot jobs in the second quarter of 2021 if unions will not agree on salary cuts and reduced working hours.
"In the absence of an agreement, it will probably be the first time in the history of our company that 500 captains and 500 first officers will have to leave us in the second quarter of 2021," Spohr said.