Lufthansa Group has reported “solid” results for third-quarter 2025. This comes despite “weak demand” during the period.
Revenues climbed 4% in the third quarter to €11.2bn, while operating expenses were up 3% to €10.5bn. This resulted in an operating income of €10.5bn – up 3% from last year’s third quarter.
“Despite weak demand in the third quarter, we managed to stay on course, enabling us to reaffirm our full-year forecast today,” said Till Streichert, CFO of Lufthansa Group.
The company confirmed its outlook of a 4% capacity increase for 2025, with an expected operating result to be “significantly above” 2024’s €1.6bn result. Free cash flow is expected to remain flat at €840 million.
However, the group’s third-quarter EBIT slipped 8% to €1.3bn, with net income down 12% to €966 million.
Fourth-quarter 2025 capacity is expected to be up around 4% compared to the same period last year, while unit revenues are expected to be flat.
Third-quarter yields were down 5.4% and unit revenues were down 2.2% in the quarter. Unit costs were relatively flat at a positive 0.5%.
The yield slowness was driven by the “highly competitive” environment and also a temporary slowdown in North Atlantic demand.
Despite anticipated slowness in North Atlantic routes, the group said these were still a key profit driver for the company.
“While the third quarter indeed showed some but anticipated yield softness in these regions, the North Atlantic was still our most important profit pool,” said Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr. “This was supported by our successful joint venture with United and Air Canada.”
The CEO said the yield softness was partially driven by negative currency exchange effects. Excluding these effects, unit revenues in North Atlantic routes “remained stable” compared to 2024.
“Looking ahead, we plan continued growth on the North Atlantic, in line with the market and also given that, capacity-wise, we are still somewhat lagging behind our peers compared to pre-pandemic levels,” Spohr said.
“In Asia, we remain cautious regarding growth, given our unfortunately continued structural disadvantage due to the closure of the Russian airspace. However, increased demand to Japan, South Korea and India give us confidence.”
Middle East routes are “picking up” and showing positive booking trends across all traffic regions for the fourth quarter, as well as the first visible weeks in 2026.
The company noted that corporate sales are “gaining some further traction”. The group described its overall booking outlook as “robust”.
The company’s MRO segment revenues grew 10% in the quarter to €1.9bn. EBIT was down 15% to €137 million.
Tariffs negatively impacted the MRO segment’s EBIT result by €13 million.
“This impact of tariffs alone makes up more than 40% of the adjusted EBIT decline in the third quarter alone,” said Streichert. “Lufthansa Technik has already started implementing countermeasures to limit the impact of tariffs on their results going forward, for example, through the redirection of production flows.
“As an example, material from customer locations in Canada or South America is no longer shipped via our logistics hub in the US. And including these measures, we expect to limit the full year net effect of the tariffs to about €50 million and to mitigate the impact in the upcoming years as well.”
Lufthansa Airlines revenues totalled €4.9bn, with an adjusted EBIT of €454 million. The group said the airline is “forging ahead” with its turnaround programme, which is said to be already having a “substantial positive effect on operational stability”.
The company’s airlines reported a collective €9bn in revenues during the third quarter, with an adjusted EBIT of €1.2bn.
SWISS reported €1.8bn in revenues and an adjusted EBIT of €275 million.
Austrian Airlines reported revenues of €754 million and an adjusted EBIT of €119 million.
Brussels Airlines’ revenues totalled €516 million, with adjusted EBIT totalling €68 million.
Eurowings reported €1bn in revenues and an adjusted EBIT of €198 million.
As of the end of September, the group’s net debt to EBITDA was 1.6x and it had €11.9bn in liquidity.