Lufthansa positive as recession take its toll

THE recession has hit Manchester passenger numbers at German airline
Lufthansa, but bosses say it’s not all doom and gloom.

Lufthansa, which has been flying from Manchester since the 1950s, now operates 87 flights a week from the airport, serving Frankfurt four times daily and Munich, Dusseldorf and Hamburg three times.

Strong growth in traffic on the Hamburg route – bucking the general downward trend – has prompted an extra daily flight.

Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa’s general manager for the UK said: “The recession has had an impact on all airlines, and we are no exception. Despite being down overall we have maintained market share.

“The good news for Manchester though is the extra Hamburg flight, in-bound passenger numbers are up 30% year on year, which is really pleasing, and are up 6% from Manchester.”.

Overall in the first nine months of the year passenger numbers are down  8.9% from 434,043 to 395,253. Ms Sammann said there were signs that the rate of decline was falling – September’s figures were down 6.8%.

“There are signs that things have maybe levelled. In terms of business travel you can only put it off for so long – despite new technology, you have to do business face to face at some point.”

She said because Lufthansa serves business routes, it was difficult to say how much leisure traffic had been impacted by the rise in the value of the euro against the pound, and the wider recession.

“On the leisure side, we have tried to mitigate the impact of the currency by offering some really good deals online for off-peak fares,” she added.

More than 60% of Lufthansa’s Manchester passengers connect onward via its Frankfurt and Munich hubs, with the Middle East and China proving to be most popular.

Ms Sammann said ‘pilgrim traffic’ to Jeddah in Saudia Arabia had not seen any downturn, thanks to Lufthansa’s unique allowance for Muslim pilgrims to bring 10 litres of holy water back home.