Deutsche Lufthansa traffic rose 7% in 2011 grew to 208bn revenue passenger kilometers last year. Lufthansa transported a record 106m passengers in 2011, up 7.5% on 2010 and more than AirFrance-KLM by some margin.
Lufthansa Passenger Airlines, which includes Germanwings, carried 11% more passengers, while the Swiss and Austrian Airlines were 8% and 3.4% up respectively. This is in stark contrast to BMI which was down 7.4% on the year as customers seemingly desert the airline.
Lufthansa increased capacity 9.8% during 2011, a move it might come to regret in 2012/2013, which in turn outpaced traffic growth and dragged the load factor down 2% to 77.2%. In this respect Lufthansa is falling behind IAG’s load factor that continue to increase to stand just below 80% - a sure sign that Willie Walsh is on the ball.