Cape Town continues to grow as top leisure destination for European tourists - Lufthansa

Source: Fin 24, 14/03/2019

While Johannesburg remains in high demand among corporate business
travellers using Lufthansa Group`s three key airlines servicing
South Africa, the airline is pleased with a 20% jump in
Capetonians using its airlines, Dr André Schulz, general manager
for the group in Southern Africa, said on Thursday.
Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines carried almost 300 000
passengers between Europe and South Africa during the 2018
financial year.
Lufthansa Group announced its results for the 2018 financial year
on Thursday. The group generated its second-best result in the
history of the company in its 2018 financial year.
Schulz said the group`s passenger traffic between SA and Europe
showed a steady increase of 3.2% in 2018 compared to 2017.
According to Schulz, as Cape Town continues to grow as a top
leisure travel destination for European visitors, the demand
facilitated an increase in the frequency of flights on these
routes.

Flight frequency increased to 16 flights per week over the South
African summer and five flights per week over the South African
winter.
Total group revenues increased by 6% during the 2018 financial
year compared to the previous financial year, group chair Carsten
Spohr said during a live-streamed press conference on Thursday.
Total revenues were 1% up on 2017, at €35.8bn. The adjusted
earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the year amounted to
around €2.8bn.
Rising fuel costs
Spohr said one of the challenges the airline had to manage during
the financial year was an increase of about €850m in fuel costs.
Furthermore, the €518m of expenses incurred due to delays and
cancellations was a 70% increase compared to the previous
financial year.
Spohr explained that only a third of the delays and cancellations
were caused by the airline itself and the rest by other factors
out of its control.
`We need to improve our punctuality, so we will increase the
number of reserve aircraft again and we are placing a special
focus on the first departures of the day to avoid delays
throughout the day,` said Spohr.
`We cannot have a backlog as almost two thirds of our passengers
are transfer passengers.`
According to Ulrik Svensson, chief financial officer of Lufthansa,
the group continues to work on further reducing its unit costs.
The group has invested €3.8bn in 2018, a large part thereof in new
more cost- and fuel-efficient aircraft.
Svensson said at the 2019 annual general meeting that the group
would propose a dividend of €0.80 per share be distributed.
Spohr said that in 2019, the Lufthansa Group would be focusing on
achieving sustainable quality growth. Therefore, the group is
further reducing the capacity growth for its airlines for the
upcoming summer to 1.9%.
Despite this, the group expects to report mid-single-digit
percentage annual revenue growth.
Lufthansa`s share price fell some 6% after its results were
announced, Reuters reported.