For many years, the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings was deep in the red. The former long-haul activities in particular have pulled the operating result deep into the basement. After an extremely long dry spell, a profit was flown again in the first half of 2023. 

Officially, the initial success is justified by the fact that the strategy has been adjusted and that this would now bear fruit. However, it is more likely that the Lufthansa Group has massively increased prices on almost all routes on which there is no competitor. Especially from Germany there are many routes where you have no competitors. Since demand is very high this year, the group, which also includes Eurowings, has managed to sell the tickets at significantly higher prices. The exorbitantly higher fares on many routes cannot be justified with general inflation alone, but if the passengers are willing to pay for this, it is called free market economy or completely legal profit optimization. 

In general, this should also do the green camp in politics a favor, because they have been demanding for several years that air tickets must become more expensive. However: If the machines are filled despite higher prices, the environment does not benefit from this, but the owners or shareholders are happy about higher dividends through legal detours.  

Eurowings Discover also flies profitably 

Eurowings was once a regional airline that initially operated on its own account and later as an ACMI provider for Lufthansa and, for a short time, Germanwings. The carrier was later converted into the low-cost airline of the Kranich Group and has been posting high losses ever since. Only shortly after the Air Berlin bankruptcy was it once in the black. Eurowings finances were hit particularly hard by the long-haul flop, which has since been discontinued. 

The Lufthansa boardroom does not want to give up long-haul tourism, which was originally part of the now independent Condor. Therefore, a new carrier has been created with Eurowings Discover, which is to be given a new brand image as Discover Airlines later this year. With ten Airbus A320s, it is also active on some short and medium-haul routes. However, the route network is almost exclusively geared towards tourism. During the most recent presentation of the half-year figures, it was also communicated that Discover was also in the black. In view of the fact that the offshoot started in the middle of the corona pandemic, this is considered a great success. Nevertheless, Discover is also likely to have benefited greatly from the generally increased price level for flight tickets. 

Group of companies benefits from high backlog demand 

According to CEO Carsten Spohr, both carriers should have made their positive contribution to the consolidated result of the Lufthansa Group. The Austrian "problem child" Austrian Airlines can again report a half-year profit. The bottom line is that the entire airline group was able to announce a higher profit than ever before in the first six months of the current year. The fact that high ticket prices could be achieved on the market is only mentioned in passing. However, it remains to be seen whether the Kranich Group will continue to be able to maintain the sharply increased prices, because especially in the current summer of 2023 there is still a considerable catch-up effect, which is due to the corona pandemic. This means that demand is high and many people, regardless of everyday inflation, do not want to bet on the total cancellation of their holidays again. It remains to be seen whether this customer group in particular will still be willing to pay exorbitantly high prices for air tickets in a few months or in the coming year. If demand collapses, then the entire industry must react and cut supply and/or lower prices in order to attract more people to "come out from behind the stove".