The German airline, Lufthansa, has announced that it is expecting to record a 2,6 billion-euro profit by the end of 2023, the best sales year in the company’s 70-year history.
Lufthansa has recently announced that, over the course of 2023, the company is projecting to make its biggest annual profit to date.
The international company is expecting to make a 2,6 billion-euro profit by the time the year is up, having already brought in a record net profit of 881 million euros between April and June - an increase of 259 million on figures from the same quarter in 2022.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr explained that high ticket prices, which are expected to remain in place for the foreseeable future, are responsible for the soaring profits. The company’s previous record was hit in 2017 when the airline brought in just under 3 billion euros.
Lufthansa and other commercial airlines may have implemented significant price increases in recent months, but recent research conducted by Greenpeace into the cost of travelling in Europe by train versus by plane has revealed how travellers are pressured to fly despite the aviation industry being the fastest-growing source of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.
While flights are getting more expensive across the continent, travelling by train within, to and from Germany is still 51 percent more expensive than flying. On some routes, for example between Hamburg and Munich, taking the train was always cheaper. However, if travellers want to cross the border to Italy, the UK, France or the Nordic countries, a trip to the airport always or almost always means the journey is cheaper.
In the most extreme case, travelling by plane between Cologne and Manchester is five times cheaper than going by train.
The reason for this discrepancy between the cost of domestic travel versus travel across European borders is that Germany is one of the only countries to apply a higher tax on domestic flights than on trains (19 percent versus 7 percent).
With airlines benefitting from grand subsidies and promoting aggressive pricing strategies, travelling by train has become a mode of transportation only possible for those who can afford it. In light of the study’s findings, Greenpeace has called on European governments to reduce subsidies for airlines and provide “massive investments to upgrade and modernise the rail infrastructure, increase the capacity of the rail networks, and make rail faster especially in Central and Eastern European countries."
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