January 10, 2019, 21:18 / Business

Lufthansa became Europe's largest airline for the first time in 14 years

German airline Deutsche Lufthansa At the end of 2018, the this . reports AG overtook Air France-KLM Group and became the largest airline in Europe in terms of passenger turnover (revenue passenger kilometers, RPK). Bloomberg

The indicator takes into account the number of passengers and the length of all stages of their air travel, measured in passenger kilometers (pkm).

Previously, the first place in Europe in this indicator was held by Air France-KLM, which had maintained its leadership since 2004, when its French and Dutch parts merged. In 2018, she lost two positions at once, ending up only in third place. It was also overtaken by the International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), which includes British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus.

Last year, Lufthansa 's RPK increased by 9%, faster than its competitors, to 284.56 billion RPK. RPK for Air France-KLM - by 2.8%, to 255.41 billion pkm. At the same time, the growth in the number of passengers of Air France-KLM in 2018 is noticeably less than that of Lufthansa . In just one year, the company carried 101.4 million passengers (+ 2.8% compared to last year) , and the Lufthansa group airlines carried 142.3 million passengers (+10%).