With the beginning of autumn, a common indicator for low passenger demand, Lufthansa has decided to reduce its fleet by 150 planes by 2025. It was previously expected to scrap 100 aircraft, but now it seems that its financial situation is getting worse. After 32 years on the index, Lufthansa was kicked off the DAX on June 22 (the stock exchange which lists the 30 main companies in Germany, also called Deutsche Börse). It was replaced by a property company, Deutsche Wohnen SA, who has billions of dollars of assets. This was mainly due to the negative economic impact of the coronavirus on aviation. As a result, one of its subsidiaries, SunExpress Deutschland (co-owned with Turkish Airlines), ceased operations the next day. Lufthansa’s share price was worth 30.42 € on the 12th of January 2018 and now it is worth 7.45 €. This negative trend line was not solely caused by the coronavirus, but by the enormous financial crisis in 2017 and 2018 that saw almost all major private airlines in Europe cease operations. Lufthansa’s March-June term revenue went down by 80.23%. Today, funnily enough, Lufthansa reached an unprecedented bottom in its history: 7.36 €.
Lufthansa’s 10 Airbus A-340-600s are all in deep storage as well as its 8 Airbus A380s. Lufthansa already scrapped 6 Airbus A380s earlier on this year. Whilst scrapping and storing all these aircraft, the airline has an order book of 160 aircraft, which are probably going to be cancelled because there is simply no need for them. Take a look at German banks, and everything will be right in front of you. I see very little future for the commercial aviation industry in the next 5 to 10 years. 22nd of September 2020.
Aeronews24 