What’s Going On Here?Lufthansa announced on Thursday that it made a $2.4 billion loss last year, and the German airline isn’t sure it’ll go places in 2022 either. What Does This Mean?Lufthansa finally started getting back on track last year: passenger bookings were picking up quickly in the second half of the year, and the airline’s cargo business – its second-biggest segment – posted a record full-year revenue, thanks to such high demand for air freight. But Lufthansa still made a loss of $2.4 billion, and 2022 is going to present a whole set of new issues: the airline now has to contend with surging fuel costs, as well as the disruption to its flight paths in the wake of the Russian invasion. Investors took the opportunity to disembark here, here, and here: Lufthansa’s stock fell 8%. Why Should I Care?For markets: Lufthansa planned ahead.
Aviation consultancy IBA thinks the airline industry will take at least an extra two months to get back to pre-pandemic levels now war has broken out, which could be why an index tracking Europe’s biggest airlines has dropped almost 20% in just the last two weeks. But at least Lufthansa hasn’t come into this situation totally unprepared: the company has already locked in 63% of its fuel needs for 2022 via futures contracts, meaning it’ll pay $74 a barrel rather than the $111 we hit earlier this week.
Zooming out: So much for vacation.
Russia’s airlines have their own problems, with plane manufacturers Airbus and Boeing both announcing this week that they’re not going to send any more aircraft parts into the country. Analysts think that could force the airlines to take pieces from idle planes and add them to functional ones, or else stay grounded. Not that Russians have many places to go, mind you: flights from Russia are being canceled across the globe. | 