OREANDA-NEWS.  Lufthansa Group airlines continue targeted capacity management and increase load factor in passenger traffic to 74.0 per cent / Load factor in cargo business climbs to 72.2 per cent
The airlines in the Lufthansa Group continued their targeted capacity management and further increased the load factor of their aircraft compared with February of last year. Across the Group, an average of 74.0 per cent of seats on passenger planes were occupied last month. This represents an increase of 0.4 percentage points on the previous year. The improved load factor is the result of a 0.2 per cent increase in sales (measured in passenger-kilometres). Capacity (measured in seat-kilometres), however, was 0.4 per cent down on the same month in the previous year. The total number of passengers carried by Lufthansa, Germanwings, Swiss and Austrian Airlines went up to 6.7 million, which represents an increase of 0.6 per cent. At 144,000 tonnes, the Group also transported 0.1 per cent more freight and mail than in Februay last year. Capacity (measured in cargo tonne-kilometres) climbed by 1.0 per cent, while sales rose by 2.3 per cent. Accordingly, the cargo load factor was up at 72.2 per cent (+0.9 percentage points).

With their higher passenger load factors, all the Group airlines contributed to the improvement in the overall load factor. With 0.9 per cent fewer flights, Lufthansa and Germanwings increased the load factor of their aircraft slightly year on year by 0.1 percentage points to 72.8 per cent. Capacity at both airlines was 1.1 per cent down on the year, but the decline in sales resulting from the reduced capacity was limited to 0.9 per cent. At 4.9 million, 1.5 per cent more passengers chose to fly with Lufthansa or Germanwings than in the same month of the previous year. Swiss was also able to improve load factor of its aircraft. The passenger load factor here picked up by 0.5 percentage points to 78.2 per cent. The company carried 1.1 million passengers (-2.0 per cent). Austrian Airlines boosted its passenger load factor by 2.1 percentage points to 74.5 per cent, transporting 673,000 passengers (-1.3 per cent). The Group reported the biggest year-on-year improvement in load factors in the Middle East/Africa traffic region, up 3.6 percentage points. Capacity here was reduced by deploying smaller aircraft on some routes.

Lufthansa Cargo carried 125,000 tonnes of freight and mail in February, which marks an increase of 0.3 per cent. The company expanded its capacity by 1.0 per cent compared with the previous year, and boosted sales by 2.0 per cent. The load factor at Lufthansa Cargo accordingly came to 72.8 per cent (+0.7 percentage points).