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Lufthansa Loses $58 Million
Cargo declines 21.3 percent but carrier sees small uptick in March
Lufthansa lost $58.2 million in a first quarter that saw overall revenue dive more than 10 percent from last year and cargo traffic fall 21.3 percent, the German airline announced Thursday.
The cargo business at Lufthansa, the world’s second-largest international freight airline, fell at a far steeper rate than passenger traffic, which declined 7 percent in the first three months of 2009 from the same period last year.
The airline saw a modest improvement in March, when cargo traffic fell 19.6 percent from the same month a year ago after a 22.7 percent slide in February. Cargo traffic grew about 10 percent from February to March.
But the trans-Atlantic trade retreated sharply, falling 27.2 percent year-over-year.
Lufthansa has reined back some cargo capacity, but its available freight space declined only 3.6 percent in March.
Without the passenger operation, the separate Lufthansa freighter business saw traffic decline 19.9 percent in March and 22.1 percent in the first quarter ending March 31.
Capacity at Lufthansa Cargo fell back 4.7 percent.
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