Lufthansa now only offers long-haul flights from Frankfurt and three times a week from Zurich with its subsidiary Swiss. Only machines from the Lufthansa Cityline branch are to take off in Munich.

Numerous return flights
At the moment, the main thing is to bring people back home from abroad. CEO Carsten Spohr was still unable to forecast business development this year. "The spread of the corona virus has put the entire world economy and our company in an unprecedented state of emergency." The consequences are currently unknown . "The longer this crisis lasts, the more likely it is that the future of aviation cannot be guaranteed without government aid."

No regular flight operations at group subsidiaries
The manager had already reported last week that Lufthansa is talking to the governments of Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland about possible support. Lufthansa is represented in the neighboring countries with its subsidiaries Austrian, Brussels and Swiss. Brussels in Belgium and Austrian in Vienna as well as the Italian subsidiary Air Dolomiti have suspended their regular flight operations.

The subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo, on the other hand, keeps its freighter fleet in the air. Lufthansa is even examining how it could use passenger aircraft without passengers for pure cargo flights. Boeing 747 jumbo jets are intended for this purpose.

New loans and short-time work
In order to survive the crisis, Lufthansa tries to keep its money together as much as possible. As already known, shareholders should forego the dividend for 2019. The group has also secured new loans and wants to use its aircraft fleet as collateral to get more money. The company is applying for short-time work for employees in its home markets, said CFO Ulrik Svensson. The entire Executive Board also said that it would forego 20 percent of its base salary this fiscal year.

Severe drop in profit
In the past year, Lufthansa suffered a sharp drop in profit due to a price war in the European business and higher kerosene prices. While sales rose by 2.5 percent to EUR 36.4 billion, adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (adjusted EBIT) slumped by 29 percent to a good EUR 2 billion. Net profit even plummeted 44 percent to 1.2 billion.

Operating profit at AUA
The Group's network airlines - Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian - suffered a 26 percent drop in operating profit to 1.8 billion euros. Contrary to expectations, the AUA was able to post an operating profit. Adjusted operating profit (adjusted EBIT) was 19 million euros in 2019. That is a 77 percent drop, but not a loss. In 2019, AUA sister Swiss posted a profit decline to CHF 578 (2018: 636) million (just under EUR 550 million).

Comprehensive savings program at Eurowings
The cheap subsidiary Eurowings was able to reduce its operating loss to EUR 166 million. In the Lufthansa Cargo freight division, on the other hand, the operating profit of EUR 268 million in the previous year collapsed to just EUR 1 million due to a slump in global demand. The board has already launched an extensive savings program.

The maintenance business of the subsidiary Lufthansa Technik proved to be an anchor of stability in 2019, increasing its operating profit by eleven percent to 493 million euros. The on-board catering division LSG Sky Chefs, whose sale has already been decided, saw an increase of eleven percent to 128 million euros.