Still big problems for Lufthansa. Due to Covid, the German company is experiencing a moment that defining dramatic is an understatement: passenger traffic was practically zeroed (-96%) in the second quarter compared to the second quarter of 2019, and in the first six months of this year the net loss now amounts to 3,6 billion, most accumulated already in the first quarter, prior to the blocking of international air traffic. Proof that the crisis was already in the air are also the very weak recovery prospects in the second half of 2020, in which Lufthansa expects a "strongly negative" operating result, despite the fact that demand will recover to the point of reaching 50% in the fourth quarter of the pre-Covid one.
The real problem now is the layoffs: with these figures, the Teutonic company now deems it "unrealistic" to avoid personnel cuts, so much so that the recovery plan provides for 22 fewer jobs: "Given the evolution of air transport and the negotiations with the social partners, the objective of avoiding layoffs thanks to early retirements, voluntary departures, an increase in part-time work or a reduction in wages has become unrealistic", explains a note, reporting that 8.000 employees have already left the group.
The only less negative note is the stability of revenues, which fell by half in six months, to 1,9 billion, supported with difficulty by the aeronautical maintenance division and the cargo branch. Lufthansa had also been helped in recent weeks by the government, which became the company's main shareholder, pouring 2,3 billion into its coffers to save it: 300 million in the form of a capital increase by the state, a billion in guaranteed loans and one billion in public funds without the right to vote. But the bloodbath cannot be avoided: the fleet, currently made up of 760 aircraft, will be reduced by over a hundred aircraft, and even the board of directors will be downsized and 20% of management positions will be eliminated.
“We are experiencing a tear in global air travel,” commented CEO Carsten Spohr, who does not expect “until 2024” that traffic will return to its pre-pandemic level. Since the end of June, he explains himself, only half of the planes returned to the air. Between the end of March and the end of June Lufthansa saw 1,4 billion of cash evaporate, mainly due to customer refunds, which reached an unprecedented level of 2 billion.
