Ahead of the publication of its Q1 2024 financial results, the Lufthansa Group has noted a ‘higher than expected’ loss of €849 million ($902 million) for the period, citing ‘various strikes, both by different employee groups within the Group and by employees at system partners’. These impacted earnings by around €350 million ($372 million), estimates Lufthansa.
Although the Group’s adjusted free cash flow was positive at €305 million ($324 million), ‘mainly due to continued high inflows from advance ticket payments,’ the full year’s adjusted EBIT is now predicted to be around €2.2bn ($2.34bn).
Operating results in Q2 2024 are also anticipated to be lower than the corresponding period of 2023, negatively impacted in the region of around €100 million ($106 million) ‘because of the effects that the now settled wage disputes, particularly at Lufthansa Airlines, had on short-term demand for travel bookings and on-going conflicts at Austrian Airlines’. Despite incoming bookings being ‘in line with original expectations, especially for the summer holiday months,’ the ramp-up in capacity in the second quarter will also be impacted by delays in new aircraft deliveries and the ‘as yet unforeseeable effects of the recent escalation in the Middle East conflict and further geopolitical uncertainties’.
Lufthansa Group feels financial impact of strike action
