Euro-Majors: IAG leads, Lufthansa unifies,
Air France reforms — August 2019

Over the past month the three top European network carriers, IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air France-KLM, have published their first half 2019 results. There are clear differences, but the figures show a strong element in common: unit revenues are under pressure, but unit costs even more so.

As a group, total capacity and revenues grew by just under 5% year-on-year but operating profits slumped by 36%. A main reason behind this was an fuel prices: the total fuel bill was up by 18% year-on-year. This reflect the fact that 2019 fuel supplies were bought at, or hedged at, 2018 prices. Since then the spot price of oil has fallen (-15% on an unnal basis in August) but this decline has not benefited airlines as yet.