German airline Lufthansa carried 6.8 per cent more traffic in January than a year earlier, helped by growth on long-haul routes to Asia and the Pacific region.
Its passenger load factor, indicating the number of seats sold as a proportion of seats available, was up 3 percentage points to 73.2 per cent of capacity.
The rise came as traffic grew faster than the 2.4 per cent overall increase in capacity for the month. While capacity was cut by 5.4 per cent in Europe and by 1.2 per cent to the Americas, additional routes from the German city of Munich to Asia and an extra daily flight to South Africa led to growth rates of almost 13 per cent in Asia and Africa.
The number of passengers Lufthansa carried last month increased 1.2 per cent to 3.55 million, while the amount of air freight and post carried rose 6.5 per cent to 127,000 tonnes, the airline added.
But the cargo load factor slipped 1.4 percentage points to 63.6 per cent of capacity as demand failed to keep pace with a 14 per cent increase in capacity due to it taking on the management of space in the aircraft holds of US Airways and European partners.
Lufthansa said on January 28th that it expected to increase seat capacity on its flights by 1.5 per cent in the summer season, following a 4-per cent rise in the winter period ending in March.
Shares in Lufthansa were down 0.9 per cent at €10.98 this afternoon, underperforming a 0.3 per cent rise in the German blue-chip DAX index.