The aircraft operator Lufthansa Group reported a net profit of 2.8 billion EUR in 2018, representing a slight decrease of 5% YoY. However, still the second-best result in the history of the company. The total revenues went up to 38.8 billion EUR, despite an increase of some 850 million EUR in fuel costs and 518 million EUR of expenses incurred through delays and cancellations. The highest net profit has been reported at SWISS, Eurowings reports a 231 million EUR loss, due to the integration costs of Air Berlin. Lufthansa proposed an unchanged dividend of 0.80 EUR per share.
“2018 was another successful year for the Lufthansa Group in financial terms”, says Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board & CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. “We generated the second-best result in the history of our company. This is a great teamwork achievement by all the 135,000 people who make up our group workforce”, added he.
Fourth-quarter net profit at the German airline was 343 million EUR compared with 560 million EUR a year earlier, Lufthansa said. The revenue rose 6% to 8.95 billion EUR from 8.82 billion EUR a year earlier.
Looking ahead into 2019, Lufthansa expects an adjusted EBIT margin of between 6.5% and 8%, while it should further reduce unit costs which will offset an expected additional 650 million EUR of fuel costs. Lufthansa said it will focus on sustainable growth and plans to reduce its capacity growth for the upcoming summer by 1.9%. It also expects its 2019 revenue growth to be in the mid-single-digit percentage range.
Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the largest German airline and, when combined with its subsidiaries, also the largest airline in Europe both in terms of fleet size and passengers carried during 2017. The name of the company is derived from the German word Luft “air” and Hansa, the Hanseatic League. Lufthansa is one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, formed in 1997.
