Lufthansa reports pick-up in passenger traffic

The leading German airline, Lufthansa, said Tuesday that passenger traffic picked up in October by 1.1 percent from the same month a year earlier.

The increase to 5.12 million passengers came following a 12-month fall of 2.0 percent in September, and suggested that brighter prospects for the global economy were beginning to show up in the transportation sector as well.

Lufthansa managed to fill 80.2 percent of available seats last month, an increase of 2.1 percentage points, a statement said.

For the entire Lufthansa group, which now includes Austrian Airlines, British Midland (BMI) and Swiss, the number of passengers climbed by 26.9 percent to 7.95 million.

Freight operations continued to face a difficult market environment but Lufthansa Cargo turned in a slight sales increase of 0.3 percent on a 12-month basis, even though the volume of goods carried declined by 4.0 percent to 144,000 tonnes.