In an all-day event with investment analysts last week, Lufthansa trumpeted the overall success of its 2014 business plan—with justification: The company doubled its operating margin from 4% in 2014 to 8% in 2018. But one important aspect of the plan was an unequivocal failure. Eurowings, born in 2015, was supposed to be Lufthansa’s low-cost […]
Tag: Lufthansa
This year’s first quarter was one all European airlines—no exceptions—would rather forget. From January through March, there wasn’t a single publicly traded U.S. airline that lost money. In stark contrast, every European airline except IAG (among the vast majority that have reported so far) suffered Q1 losses. And even within IAG, only British Airways avoided […]
Buying an airline is like getting a pet. It sounds like a great idea. It can be a great idea. But sometimes, it winds up being a responsibility and burden you wish you never took on. When Lufthansa originally invested in Brussels Airlines—it bought a 45% stake in 2009—it surely hoped for something better than […]
Most of Europe’s publicly traded airlines have now reported their second-quarter results. A few like Aegean and SAS will report later this month. Others like Virgin Atlantic, Alitalia, TAP Air Portugal and LOT Polish—as non-public companies—generally keep their financial reports to themselves. Even without total transparency, however, there’s enough new information to delineate the key […]
After losing $300m in 2016 as a result of some horrific exposure to terrorism and political tumult, things are looking up for Turkish Airlines. In its second quarter, the airline posted a 5% operating profit margin and with that likely will turn a profit for the full calendar year. How did Turkish do it? Other […]
When is a $2 billion annual profit disappointing? Answer: When you’re a giant airline group like Lufthansa, and $2 billion amounts to a mere 5% operating margin—and that lackluster result comes despite fuel costs dropping 16% year over year. But there are a few signs of hope. Meanwhile, American Airlines is purchasing a $200-million stake […]
If anybody needed a reminder that the airline business is an interesting business, they got it last week as Air Berlin announced it will be handing over a big chunk of itself to arch competitor Lufthansa. Will Air Berlin be saved by shrinking itself? Not stopping there, Lufthansa decided it would also become the full […]
One of the bright spots in the Lufthansa Group’s second quarter earnings report was its Swiss unit, which bested Lufthansa mainline, the Austrian unit and even the healthy maintenance unit. Meanwhile, Eurowings was the worst performing airline of the group, with a negative one percent margin—but that was a great improvement from the first quarter. […]
It was supposed to be a week dominated by financial reports for U.S. airlines. But for all the many developments there, none seemed as eye-popping and head-turning as the doom and gloom emanating from airlines in Europe and East Asia. Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline, doesn’t even report until Aug. 2. But it has news to […]
Lufthansa has a theory about why Europe’s airline industry remains so fragmented, even as the U.S. airline industry has become so consolidated. More interestingly, Lufthansa has a plan to help change that. There are four big impediments to European airline consolidation, the giant German airline says. For one, many European carriers (i.e. SAS, Finnair, TAP […]