Germany's largest airliner Lufthansa has suffered operating losses of over €1 billion for the first quarter owing to the continued complications during the pandemic, the company posted on Thursday.
Lufthansa & Neste
This comes a few months after the company revealed it expected significant turnover for 2021 after suffering its worst loss in history.
Read more: Lufthansa prepares for strong growth following record annual loss
This loss represents nearly half of the losses it made in the same period last year and has managed to reduce the impact of the pandemic owing to cost-cutting measures.
Cost-cutting measures include cutting its workforce by nearly 20%, although the company remains optimistic for the second half of the year, and was initially hoping to return to 70% of its capacity for the summer period.
In a statement, the company revealed it expects a significant recovery for the second half of the year, in part thanks to vaccination rollout, the acceptance of Covid tests and the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions.
Conversely, the company's cargo unit - as per the last update - made overwhelming profits once again. The cargo division is being used to transport vaccines across the globe and the fact that freight costs increased as demand wavered.
April to June will see gradual recovery, the company announced and it is projected that use of air travel will begin to ramp up over the next few months.
This may be accentuated by the EU allowing travel from places such as the US, provided passengers have been vaccinated and tested.
Despite this, the group has said it will likely only operate at 40% capacity for the next few months, far below its original projection.
The airliner also received a huge €9 billion government bailout last year from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium. This comes as the pandemic continued to neuter the global aviation sector.
It was so bad at one point over 5,000 travel and tourism associations signed a letter to ask EC President Ursula von der Leyen to end the quarantine lockdown restrictions in order to prevent further losses.
Read more: Over 5,000 sign open letter for EU president to end quarantine restrictions on air travel
British Airways also sought to introduce mandatory Covid testing on flights and pushed for this to become a stay in the aviation sector, even as vaccine rollout continued.
Much of the aviation sector posted losses during the coronavirus pandemic, but this year may signal an end to the pandemic in sight.
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