Eurowings

Eurowings is positioned as a value airline with a focus on point-to-point traffic in Europe

With clear positioning as Europe’s value airline for private and business travellers, Eurowings clearly sets itself apart from the segment of ultra-low-cost carriers and enables its customers affordable and flexible flying with innovative and customer-friendly services.

Eurowings’ route network focuses on European point-to-point traffic and addresses the structural growth in the private travel segment. Eurowings offers non-stop flights to more than 150 destinations within Europe. With an attractive route network and 13 international bases - including Mallorca, Europe’s number one holiday island - Eurowings is one of Europe’s largest holiday airlines.

Eurowings consists of two different flight operations. While Eurowings Germany offers flights from Germany to European destinations, Eurowings Europe covers pan-European routes. Eurowings Europe operates from its international bases in Palma de Mallorca, Salzburg, Graz, Prague and Stockholm and offers travellers a growing selection of holiday destinations and attractive city connections in Europe.

The consolidated result of Eurowings includes the result of its 50% equity investment in SunExpress, a joint venture with Turkish Airlines, which is accounted for using the equity method.

Eurowings Digital expanded further

Eurowings is expanding the activities of its digital subsidiary Eurowings Digital in the fields of e-commerce, software development, digital product and customer experience, and recruiting another 150 staff. Eurowings is thus investing to improve its digital products and services along the entire travel chain. A particular focus is on personalisation, in order to offer Eurowings customers an individual travel experience on holiday and business flights. Its passenger offering is being gradually expanded and supplemented by travel packages from Eurowings Holidays, flights from partner airlines and other additional products.

Eurowings opens new bases

Eurowings is expanding its tourist services at Nuremberg and Hanover airports. As part of this growth, Eurowings will again station one Airbus A320 permanently at each of the two new bases starting from the 2023/24 winter flight schedule. Another aircraft is to be stationed in Hanover in summer 2024.

Eurowings also stationed one Airbus A319 at Graz Airport in May 2023. Graz is the second Eurowings base in Austria and is therefore an integral part of Eurowings’ pan-European expansion.

Eurowings develops partnerships

Eurowings is accelerating its pan-European growth at its base in Prague and intensifying its partnership with Smartwings, the leading Czech airline. Thanks to a bilateral code-sharing agreement, Eurowings customers have enjoyed a wider range of direct connections from the Czech capital since August 2023.

Eurowings also cooperates with the Spanish airline Volotea. As part of their distribution partnership, both airlines have since May 2023 offered some 150 European routes on the respective other partner’s website. Since there are no overlaps between the two airlines’ route networks, the partnership is creating a fast growing range of flights on both the Volotea and Eurowings websites.

Eurowings fleet is being modernised and expanded

Eurowings received one new Airbus A320neo and four new A321neos as part of its continuous fleet modernisation in the reporting year. The number of the most efficient and economic short- and medium-haul aircraft in the fleet therefore continues to grow. With two new additions planned for 2024, the neo-fleet at Eurowings will add up to 13 aircraft in future.

As part of a fleet swap within the Lufthansa Group, Eurowings also received six Airbus A321ceos in the reporting year. Eurowings deploys the biggest medium-haul jets from Airbus on routes to the most popular holiday destinations in order to better serve ongoing high demand.

At the end of the reporting year, the Eurowings fleet had a total of 100 aircraft. ↗ Fleet

Eurowings hires employees and signs new wage agreements

The steep increase in demand for flights led to a wave of new recruitment at Eurowings in the reporting year. Over 1,500 new employees have been hired since the end of the coronavirus pandemic. They were hired particularly for the flight operations of Eurowings Germany and Eurowings Europe, as well as for the fast growing IT start-up Eurowings Digital GmbH in Cologne.

Eurowings signed important wage agreements with collective bargaining and social partners in the reporting year. They cover the cockpit and cabin crew at Eurowings Germany and Eurowings Europe. ↗ Employees

Capacity and passenger numbers rising significantly

In financial year 2023, Eurowings registered a strong level of demand for tourist flights and expanded its capacity accordingly.

In the reporting year, the number of passengers carried by Eurowings rose 23% to 20.8m (previous year: 17.0 million). Capacity increased by 16%. It was thus at 99% of its 2019 pre-crisis level. The number of flights was up year-on-year by 13% and sales by 21%. At 84.1%, the passenger load factor was 3.3 percentage points higher than the previous year’s level (previous year: 80.8%). Average yields per revenue seat-kilometre increased by 9.9%. Traffic revenue of EUR 2,580m was 39% higher than in the previous year (previous year: EUR 1,851m).

Revenue up by 40% year-on-year, Adjusted EBIT of EUR 205m at record level

Eurowings revenue increased by 40% to EUR 2,592m due to higher volumes and prices (previous year: EUR 1,857m). Operating income of EUR 2,711m was 33% up on the previous year (previous year: EUR 2,032m).

Operating expenses increased in the reporting year by 16% to EUR 2,631m (previous year: EUR 2,262m). The cost of materials and services was 22% higher than in the previous year, mainly due to volumes and prices as a result of higher fees and charges (+37%) and higher expenses for external MRO services (+91%). Staff costs rose by 20% due to the recruitment activities in the context of the ongoing expansion of the airline’s flight programme.

Eurowings was therefore able to report a record result in financial year 2023 thanks to strong demand and the successful restructuring that has taken place in recent years. Adjusted EBIT came to EUR 205m (previous year: EUR -197m). The improvement stems from the significant expansion of the flight programme, higher average yields, better productivity and higher load factors on aircraft. Adjusted EBIT includes the result of the investment in SunExpress of EUR 125m (previous year: EUR 33m). This includes a one-off tax effect of around EUR 60m.

The Adjusted EBIT margin amounted to 7.9% in the reporting year (previous year: -10.6%). EBIT came to EUR 241m (previous year: EUR -200m). The difference to Adjusted EBIT in the reporting period mainly results from book gains from asset disposals.