Lufthansa FY21 Loss Narrows, Load Factor Down; Stock Dips

Deutsche Lufthansa AG reported Thursday a loss in its fiscal 2021, narrower than last year, with strong growth in traffic and capacity. Passenger load factor, meanwhile, was lower than last year. Looking ahead, the German airline expects a further recovery in air traffic for the 2022 financial year. Lufthansa shares were losing around 7 percent in German trading.

In the first quarter of the year, the spread of the Omicron variant and the resulting rise in coronavirus cases will continue to adversely affect the airline.

However, for the rest of the year the company expects a significant relaxation in the pandemic situation allowing many people to catch up on holidays and business travel.

Carsten Spohr, Chief Executive Officer, said, “… At the same time, the political and economic consequences of the Ukraine conflict could affect our business performance in ways that cannot yet be estimated. In general, we are well prepared to continue our recovery in another challenging year.”

For fiscal year 2021, net loss attributable to shareholders narrowed to 2.19 billion euros or 2.99 euros per share from loss of 6.73 billion euros or 12.51 euros per share in the previous year.

Adjusted EBIT, the company’s key performance indicator, was a loss of 2.35 billion euros, compared to prior year’s loss of 5.45 billion euros.

Adjusted EBITDA loss was 90 million euros, sharply narrower than loss of 2.89 billion euros a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA margin was negative 0.5 percent, compared to negative 21.3 percent last year.

Annual group revenue was 16.81 billion euros, up 24 percent from the previous year’s 13.59 billion euros. In 2021, the demand for flights increased further, driven by the global progress on vaccination campaigns and relaxation of travel restrictions.

Traffic revenue for Lufthansa Group airlines rose 31 percent year-on-year to 11.88 billion euros.

Passengers climbed 29 percent from last year to 46.95 million, and the available capacity at the passenger airlines was 32 percent above the previous year at 145.14 billion Available seat-kilometres. Traffic grew 29 percent to 89.40 billion revenue seat-kilometres.

Passenger load factor edged down 1.6 percentage points to 61.6 percent. Cargo load factor grew 1.6 percentage points to 71.4 percent.

In Germany, Lufthansa shares were trading at 6.14 euros, down 7.30 percent.

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