Lufthansa Group, Europe’s largest airline group, welcomes 142 million passengers in 2018

In 2018, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group carried a total of 142 million passengers, setting a new passenger record. With more than 1.2 million flights and a seat load factor of 81.4 percent, the aircraft load factor was higher than ever before.

The hubs in Zurich, Munich, and Vienna were all major contributors to the network airlines’ growth, with passenger increase of 9.5 percent, 9.3 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively. The number of passengers at the Frankfurt hub grew by 4.7 percent in 2018. Eurowings also contributed to the Lufthansa Group's new passenger record in 2018 with growth of 18 percent.

In December, the freight capacity was 4.7 percent higher than in the previous year and the ton-kilometers sold 0.4 percent higher. This results in a payload factor of 66.1 percent, which is 2.8 percentage points lower. In 2018, total freight capacity was 4.3 percent higher than in the previous year. At the same time, sales increased by 0.8 percent in this period. At 66.4 percent, the load factor was 2.3 percentage points lower than in the previous year.

In December 2018, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 10 million passengers on board their aircraft. This corresponds to an increase of 6.9 percent over the same month last year. The number of seat kilometers offered was 11 percent higher than the previous year, while sales increased by 10.6 percent. This results in a seat load factor of 78.5 percent, 0.3 percentage points lower than in December 2017.