Lufthansa to increase ticket prices in 2019

Germany's largest airline Lufthansa will increase ticket prices due to higher fuel expenses in 2019, CEO Carsten Spohr announced during the presentation of quarterly figures on Tuesday.

The airlines expected that fuel costs would rise by a total of 850 million euros to more than 6 billion euros in the current year due to the rising oil prices. In 2019, Lufthansa expects fuel costs to rise by an additional 900 million euros.

Lufthansa's operating profit (EBIT) in the third quarter (Q3) of 2018 amounted to 1.35 billion euros and was almost eleven percent lower compared to prior year's figure. Revenues increased slightly from 9.81 billion euros in Q3 2017 to 9.96 billion euros in Q3 2018.

During the summer, Lufthansa had faced high charges due to flight cancellations and delays and announced in mid-October that 18,000 flights had been canceled so far in 2018.

"This equates to a two-week closure of our largest airport in Frankfurt," member of the board Harry Hohmeister told the German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt.

High costs for fuel as well as expenses for the integration of additional airplanes into the fleet of Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings also played a major role in the decline of profits, according to the company.