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Baggage carousel at Düsseldorf Airport: Lufthansa boss Spohr prepares employees for a “long, cold winter”
Photo: Marius Becker / picture alliance / dpa
Aviation is one of the industries hardest hit by the corona crisis - and a quick recovery is still a long way off.
In the travel month of July, just under 9.9 million people used the airports in Germany, according to the monthly balance of the Airport Association ADV.
That was almost twice as many as in the same month last year, but only 40 percent of the volume from July 2019, the year before the corona pandemic.
According to ADV, passengers are particularly lacking on domestic flights and the long intercontinental connections.
In both areas, demand was only around a quarter of the pre-crisis level.
The most important segment remained European flights to the typical holiday destinations on the Mediterranean.
Here, the passenger numbers were 7.8 million, almost half (47.2 percent) of the volume from July 2019.
Passenger numbers are falling again
And there is no short-term improvement in sight - on the contrary: The ADV reported at the beginning of the week that the number of passengers has recently decreased again.
In the week from 16 to 22 August, for the first time in months, fewer passengers were counted than in the respective previous week.
As early as 2020, the number of passengers had dropped sharply after a wave of tourists in the summer.
Lufthansa is one of the airlines hit by the crisis.
And CEO Carsten Spohr is already getting his company in the mood for tough times: "We are preparing for another long, cold winter for us as an airline," said the CEO on Monday evening in Frankfurt.
Spohr does not see the goals he has set himself for the current year in jeopardy.
However, it is significantly more pessimistic than before with regard to the opening of important long-haul flight markets.
"The way to normality will take longer for us than for many others," said Spohr, referring to the profits of many Dax companies that are already bubbling up again.
Lufthansa is already happy to have reached 50 percent of the business volume again.
Lufthansa: Cargo as a ray of hope
The multi-airline group is also failing to adhere to its own announcement that it will again be offering "almost all" of the destinations it offered before the pandemic in September.
Spohr named the number of 280 destinations that one flies to again compared to around 300 destinations before the corona crisis.
For the current year, the goal of 40 percent capacity remains achievable, said Spohr.
The Lufthansa Cargo freight division, which will generate at least one billion euros in operating profit in the current financial year, said the CEO, remains a bright spot.
For comparison: when he himself moved into the Lufthansa Executive Board ten years ago, one billion euros in operating profit was the goal for the entire group.
In 2020, the freight division had already alleviated the losses of the passenger companies with a record profit of 772 million euros.
It benefited from the omission of additional loading options from the competition and from problems with sea freight.
apr / dpa
