Lufthansa pledges cabin focus in hard times ahead

March 11, 2009

Despite an operating profit of Eur1.35 billion last year, Lufthansa is readying itself for hard times and has named a focus on new cabin products as one of its key weapons in the battle against the recession.

The German carrier announced today that it had increased its offer and sales during the past business year, yielding net profits of Eur599 million. “This represents an outstanding result and its quality is underlined by the fact that it has been achieved during a time of global economic crisis,” said chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber. “We intend to maintain our lead in the far more challenging environment of 2009.”

Describing the coming 12 months as one of the most challenging years in the airline industry’s history, Mayhuber warned that it was not possible to forecast the duration
and extent of the economic crisis.

“We will continue to keep our eyes on a solid balance sheet, adjusting our offer to the current demand situation,” he declared. “We intend to continue investing in aircraft, products and training. However, in view of the dramatic deteriorating economic conditions, while we expect a positive result for the 2009 business year, it will be clearly below the previous year’s result.”