Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Lufthansa Group Q4 2025 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Moritz, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Marc-Dominic Nettesheim, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Also my end, a very warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the presentation of our full- year results, 2025. With me on the call today are our CEO, Carsten Spohr, and our CFO, Till Streichert. Both of them will present the results for the past year and discuss our commercial outlook for 2026. Afterwards, as always, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and I want to remind you, please limit your questions to two, so that everybody has a chance to participate in the Q&A session. Thank you very much. With that, Carsten, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you, Marc, and warm welcome from me as well to this full- year 2025 conference, which I think will start in a little bit of a different tone, not because it's our famous 100 year celebration this year, which makes it a special year for us anyway, but while we were focusing on this to a certain degree, it obviously last weekend when everything was changed again. Maybe I'll share with you a few thoughts on where we are when it comes to the situation at the Gulf first, which is, as you know, very dynamic and of course, with a few thoughts on the whole year before I hand over to Till for more details and expected by you, feedback on our numbers.
Of course, I also would like to give you a view ahead as much as that's possible in such a dynamic environment. On the Gulf situation, like many of us, I would assume we're a little bit surprised by the various dynamic turns this takes. In the end, our crisis management always ask us for safety first, which in our case meant we stopped flying a day early to the region, which also allowed us to have hardly any aircraft on location because we brought them home before. We then brought our crews home and then went into the next phase of our management of the situation by deciding to close 10 destinations initially, which included Larnaca. We are opening this Saturday again, but keep the others closed for probably a few more days at least to remain.
I think there's more and more now doubts this is a question of days of reopening or this weeks. We prepare for both, and we'll take you through this in the Q&A session, if required. Second, of course, big impact spike on fuel prices. Till will come back to that. We actually believe due to the fact that we are hedged highest towards our main competitors, the actually only other airline hedged the way we are is Ryanair, with which we who, as you know, hardly overlap, should give us a relative advantage when now prices in the markets need to go up to cover for higher fuel prices, especially of course, for our American competitors and partners who more or less are not hedged at all. Third, extensional or extra sections to be flown to markets beyond the Gulf.
We have seen huge demand since day one for bookings coming in from Asia to Asia, also South Africa, also very much in China towards Beijing and Shanghai. We now decided to put extra sections into the air with spare aircraft we have due to the cancellations, spare crews we have and also by the fact that we're still in the winter schedule, which doesn't put our fleet to the max. We already announced quite a few extra flights to Bangkok. There will be more coming to Singapore, to Shanghai, to Cape Town and to India, which will probably confirm the course of the last day from our revenue management teams that we have record inbound bookings, especially to those regions I mentioned.
That will allow us probably give also later on to a more positive outlook on the commercial output, at least of this initial phase of this crisis than we otherwise would have been able to do. Last but not least, the mother of all questions probably for European airlines, how much is this situation changing the view and the behavior of travelers, customers on this obvious Achilles heel of geopolitical topics beyond aviation, but surely in aviation? We all, I think, agree the Gulf carriers will reopen eventually, but how are traffic flows, how are cargo flows being directed in the future based on this terrible experience locally, I think is the mother of all questions for our industries, and I'm sure we'll be discussing that later on.
With that, let me nevertheless take you, of course, now back to 2025, which as you might recall, we have called a transition year from the very beginning. Various topics in the pipeline we have addressed to you before and of course, happy to also discuss today. Overall, the turnaround of the Lufthansa airline remains our utmost priority. As also mentioned in the former quarterly results sessions, starting from operations, we have seen significant improvements, which also allowed us to reduce our flight irregularity costs by 43%, equivalent of EUR 362 million, significant input into our improved numbers of 2025.
Overall, also we were quite cautious with our capacity increase, which only resulted in 4% or a little less, even 3.8% growth. By lifting our revenues to new records of EUR 39.6 billion, we nevertheless of course were able to improve our profits, as you know, to at least by 19% compared to 2024. This is a delta of EUR 350 million, far away from where Till and I want to take the company, talking about the 8%-10% margins, at least a step in the right direction, and especially when it comes to the core airline, the operational stabilization was the basis for everything to come. We once again saw strong earnings contributions from MRO and logistics, for us important that also in the core of the core, we are moving forward.
We also have seen the first, but only the first positive impacts of our fleet modernization and the associated product improvements. As you know, we finally were able to certify our Allegris seats also the 787, which is a big part of the 23 new aircraft deliveries we received. As a matter of fact, seven of these 23 were 787s with now more or less all certified seats across all classes. That fleet alone, Boeing 787, will grow to 32 aircraft by the end of the year 2027, will have a significant impact on our modernization. Allegris, our new product in Lufthansa and SWISS Senses are now underway out of three hubs, Munich, Zurich and Frankfurt.
Not only we are receiving very positive feedbacks, but maybe more important for you in numbers, we have been able to achieve 12% higher yields for Allegris than for the former business class. To give you an example on business class, that's a big element of bringing up our ancillary revenues, which already went up 15% last year. I'm pretty sure we'll see you show you some good numbers for 2026, a year from today. Overall, that of course, forced us to discuss how much are we want to make sure that shareholders already participate from this improvement. We decided to increase the dividend by 10% to EUR 0.33 per share, which is a 10% increase, resulting in a dividend yield of 4% and a payout ratio of 30%. With that, let me turn to the traffic regions.
I think we all remember Liberation Day last spring when there were doubts about the development of North Atlantic. It turned out, as expected, that the North Atlantic remained strong and by the way, continues to do so. We'll come back to that later. We managed to expand and sell capacity on this most profitable market segment of ours by 5%. In the fourth quarter, with an overall capacity growth of roughly 4%, we even managed to slightly increase unit revenues on a currency-adjusted basis, which was clearly a trend reversal to the demand situation we saw in Q3. Going forward, I think the backbone of North Atlantic will remain, but I think it's already fair to say we will see an increased shift of point of sales to the U.S.
In this stage where American customers tend to book earlier than European customers in Q3 and Q2, we're almost at a 60% above share of point of sales U.S. and obviously below 40% in Europe. Again, due to the later booking patterns of Europeans, this will shift a little bit. Again, I'm convinced the trend of last year, where we grew our American passengers by 10% and our European passengers only by 1%, will probably result in even stronger dynamics this summer. Second largest intercontinental area for Lufthansa is not anymore China, but by now India, which is also obviously one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. We signed a partnership agreement with our long-term partner, Air India, following just a few weeks after the EU and India had concluded a new trade agreement.
We, in this case includes not only Lufthansa, but the German economy, the German business environment, are quite positive and bullish on India. Of course, Lufthansa Group wants to be part of it. Also in South Korea and Japan, where we slightly increased capacity along with demand, we were able to bring up profitability. That is also true for South America, which, as you know, becomes more important for us also due to the fact that with ITA, we were able to double our capacities to Argentina and Brazil. The idea for 2026 is to grow 6% on intercont and more or less stay flat on cont. As I said, this of course, does not include our recent extra sections we are now in the process of offering.
These numbers, of course, are based on a regular flight pattern, which probably will change due to the short-term demand we are trying to take advantage of. Nevertheless, focused growth will remain our fundamental principle. We've seen the upside of this in 2025, and we'll probably see more of this in 2026. Coming to the next slide, let me talk a little bit about our obviously unique business model based on the fact of not having the same home market as our main competitors in Paris and London. We'll be even more focused on the four business segments. We'll also show them now also in our financial reporting with the four strategic pillars we know.
Network airlines will continue to be our core of the core by 70% turnover share, of course, with Lufthansa Airlines being the biggest part of it. We will also now be very more transparent on our success in the point-to-point business, where Eurowings is continuous, not only going strong to defend our non-hub core markets. You all know this is the other, the utmost priority for Eurowings historically. We also see due to the fact that other airlines have been leaving Germany due to the high cost structure, additional market opportunities on the leisure side, we are continuously exploring. Third pillar, logistics. Not surprisingly, the more unplannable the global economy is, the better for cargo. We've seen a good year in 2025. Well, Till, we'll give you more numbers on in a minute.
Already the way things are starting now after the Chinese Lunar Year with a complete mix up of traffic lanes and supply chains due to the situation at the Gulf. We're probably looking at a good year here as well. On top of that, new consumer behavior when it comes to e-commerce, I think combined, will make this a strong part of our company to come. That's even more true for Technik. We all have discussed with you before that 2025, due to tariffs, there has been a little bit of a slowdown of our increase of margin and profits, which we don't expect to see again in 2026.
Obviously, the more or less new part of the Technik business being defense, will probably also get more tailwinds from the unfortunate military developments in Iran over the last days and more to come. I'm sure we'll be talking this, we'll talk about this rather more than less in the future. Till, with that little, call it 360 and almost hourly dynamic situation of where we are, hand over to you, and talk to you in a few more minutes with some outlooks on my side of the strategic path before we are ready for your questions.
Thank you, Carsten, also warm welcome from my side. Exactly as Carsten has said, I'll deal with the 2025 looking backwards, then of course, looking into 2026 and commenting on our outlook. Carsten and I will try to answer your questions in particular to 2026 as much as we can in the best possible way. Let's first get 2025 out of the way. 2025, as you've seen, revenue increased by 5.4% to EUR 39.6 billion, enabled by disciplined capacity growth of 3.8% of our passenger airlines, strong third-party revenue growth at Lufthansa Technik, continued strong demand for air cargo.
While costs developed in line with expectations last year, the cost increases continued to weigh on our P&L, such as a 10% increase in fees and charges or also a 40% increase for emission certificates last year. On the positive side, we did benefit from a lower fuel bill in 2025, that was EUR 514 million lower than the year before. Overall, Adjusted EBIT increased by EUR 350 million to EUR 1.96 billion, and our Adjusted EBIT margin improved to 4.9%. Please note that due to a one-off tax valuation effect, our positive EBIT development did not translate into a higher net income. Adjusted free cash flow amounts to EUR 1.2 billion, and this is a significant improvement.
This significant improvement was driven by the stronger Adjusted EBIT, tax reimbursements and a slightly lower Net CapEx. Turning now to our passenger airlines, the segments surpassed last year's result despite a challenging environment. Adjusted EBIT increased by EUR 41 million, supported by favorable fuel prices, a significantly lower irregularity impact, and a positive earnings contribution from ITA. We are especially happy about Lufthansa Airlines' Adjusted EBIT improvement of around EUR 250 million, this reflects the positive impact of the turnaround program. Across all our airlines, capacity grew, as mentioned before, 3.8%, with growth being primarily deployed to the North Atlantic and continental routes, reflecting the strategic importance of both markets. In the second half of the year, we shifted capacity growth towards intercont markets while streamlining cont traffic.
Seat load factor was at 83.2%, slightly higher than 2024, and with a clear momentum towards year-end. As anticipated, yields came under pressure, particularly on short haul and parts of long haul. However, I want to highlight that in our important North Atlantic traffic, unit revenue increased in the fourth quarter by 2.1% on a currency-adjusted basis, confirming the resilience of the demand. Moreover, yield weakness was to a large extent compensated by strong growth in ancillary revenues, up 15% for the full year, as well as significantly lower irregularity-related compensation cost. On the cost side, we have improved our performance throughout the year.
While ex-fuel CASK still increased by 3.6% in the first half of the year, the increase in Q3 was only 0.5%, and the Q4 CASK was almost flat to prior year. This impact of our turnaround measures is important given the ongoing substantial cost inflation in fees, charges, and personnel cost. As mentioned before, Lufthansa Airlines is of fundamental importance to us. I'm happy to report progress. In its turnaround program, we achieved measures with a gross earnings impact of more than EUR 500 million, a clear confirmation that the turnaround is gaining traction. Looking ahead, we expect the measure volume to increase to EUR 1.5 billion by the end of 2026, and to EUR 2.5 billion by 2028.
As communicated, in our, on our Capital Markets Day, we are targeting a high- single-digit Adjusted EBIT margin by 2028 to 2030 for Lufthansa Airlines. The key building blocks of this trajectory are clear the continued renewal of our fleet, productivity improvements, and the combined power of many other initiatives of the turnaround program. On fleet, we expect the Allegris share of the Lufthansa Airlines wide body fleet to reach as much as 50% by the end of the year. This goes hand in hand with an improved yield level. We currently see a 12% RASK uplift from Allegris. On productivity, we will shift further 14 aircraft into our more cost efficient AOCs, Discover Airlines and City Airlines. City Airlines has recently taken up operations out of Frankfurt and will operate 18 aircraft by the end of the year in total.
Discover will operate 32 aircraft, including four A350s. Combined with further measures to improve cockpit and cabin staffing, this is expected to increase crew productivity by about 7% in 2026 compared to prior year. On our 700 turnaround initiatives, let me just comment on some of them. One example is ancillary revenues, where we expect a further push driven by the prominent placement of additional services, as well as the consistent monetization of the Allegris seating options. Our new cont fare structure will lead to a more personalized offer with the aim to increase customers' willingness to pay. On the cost side, we will increase operational efficiency and hence achieve a further reduction as well in fuel consumption.
All of this improves financial performance, and in 2026, we expect that we can limit the increase of the Lufthansa Airlines ex-fuel CASK to a maximum of half the annual rate of inflation. Moreover, it is noteworthy that this unit cost increase is fully driven by premiumization, hence an investment into value creation for both our customers and ultimately our shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, structural improvements do not only apply to our main line, we also focus on digital transformation on a group level. Let me briefly touch on the progress of our OneIT program. OneIT is a group-wide transformation program, and it aims, its aim is to move toward a completely unified IT backbone, a common data and AI foundation, and an integrated operating model under the recently founded legal entity, lufthansagroup.io. The objective is clear. Structurally lower IT costs while unlocking digital business value.
I'm pleased that already in 2025, the launch year of the program, OneIT delivered its first tangible financial contribution. We realized more than EUR 50 million of IT cost savings through quick wins such as contract renegotiations, sourcing optimization, and application rationalization. In 2026, OneIT will focus on the implementation of structural changes, followed by scaling on in 2027. The program targets in total about EUR 200 million of sustainable annual cost savings by 2030. This IT transformation will also enable significant additional business value, for example, through ancillary revenues, personalized advertising or cost improvements in customer servicing. This is why OneIT is not only a cost program, but a core enabler of value creation across the entire group. Let me now turn to our logistics segment.
Lufthansa Cargo once again delivered a strong performance in 2025, demonstrating that the business is well-positioned in the post-pandemic air freight environment. The revenue growth of 4% was driven by a 5% capacity increase as a result of one additional freighter and increased belly capacity. Strong demand was driven by Asian e-commerce, semiconductors, aviation components and pharmaceuticals, all of them high margin verticals, and therewith putting them into the focus of Lufthansa Cargo. Lufthansa Cargo delivered an Adjusted EBIT of EUR 324 million, representing a 29% improvement driven by higher volumes and improved load factors, more than compensating a decline in yields. On the cost side, Lufthansa Cargo showed a strong performance. Ex-fuel unit cost decreased by around 6% and main drivers were here lower charter expenses, IT cost reductions, and improved crew productivity through optimizing network planning.
Looking ahead, we expect for Lufthansa Cargo a clear earnings increase in 2026, building on a disciplined execution of its strategy and a strong market position in special cargo and premium products. Turning to our MRO segment, Lufthansa Technik achieved a 12% revenue growth with total revenue exceeding EUR 8 billion for the first time, driven by a 23% increase in third-party business. While this was an exceptional top-line development, Adjusted EBIT amounted to EUR 603 million, broadly in line with the previous year. This result was achieved despite sizable external headwinds. One of those headwinds came from foreign exchange developments. While the weak U.S. d ollar had a net positive effect for our airlines, Lufthansa Technik was impacted negatively with a mid- double-digit million euro earnings effect.
Lufthansa Technik was also affected by the U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel, impacting the results by roughly EUR 30 million. Please note that this was already significantly lower than originally assumed due to the swift and successful implementation of mitigation measures. These measures included adjustment to the production flows, renegotiations with customers, and optimizing customs processes. These steps contributed to an earnings recovery in the fourth quarter. We expect that the negative effects will diminish further in 2026. In parallel, Lufthansa Technik continue to expand its global footprint. New or growing facilities in Portugal, Tulsa, Calgary, and Malta will contribute to substantial capacity additions, particularly in the engine segment.
In 2026, we expect earnings at Lufthansa Technik to increase significantly, supported by normalization of tariff impacts, continued growth in the engine segment, and the benefits of the commercial initiatives already underway. Turning now to cash flow. 2025 was a year of significant improvement for the group, both in terms of cash flow profile and resilience of our balance sheet. Operating cash flow increased to EUR 4 billion, driven by higher earnings as well as a tax repayment from a German tax audit. CapEx includes the final payments for 23 new aircraft, of which nine were wide body aircraft.
This was partially offset by 19 sale and leaseback transactions. Net CapEx stands at EUR 2.5 billion and is therefore slightly below previous year's level and also below our expectation at the end of Q3 due to a delivery shift of four wide-body aircraft into the first half of 2026. Adjusted free cash flow reached close to EUR 1.2 billion, which represents a meaningful increase of EUR 350 million. Looking at our balance sheet, the combination of strong operating cash flow and disciplined investment led to a significant strengthening of our liquidity position. We ended the year with liquidity of around EUR 10.7 billion above our target corridor of EUR 8 billion-EUR 10 billion.
We expect this liquidity position to return to the target corridor, into the target corridor, by year end, 2026, as we use these available funds for aircraft, invests and payments. Financial net debt increased to EUR 6.4 billion, mainly driven by the capitalization of leases. When including our net pension position, total net debt remained stable year-over-year. As our profitability increased, our leverage ratio improved to 1.8x . We continue to be solidly positioned with an investment-grade credit rating and ample financial flexibility to support our fleet renewal and growth plans. Now let's talk about fuel prices, which is of course on top of everyone's mind right now. Fuel costs developed favorably throughout 2025 and amounted to EUR 7.3 billion in line with guidance.
For 2026, our fossil fuel bill estimate is around EUR 7.2 billion. There are EUR 7 billion for fossil fuel and EUR 0.2 billion for mandatory SAF, all figures as of last week, Friday. These numbers represent a tailwind of approximately EUR 100 million versus 2025, predominantly driven by the weaker U.S. dollar. As you know, our hedging strategy continues to provide protection against volatility, while also allowing us to benefit from price declines. For the passenger airlines, we have already hedged around 82% of our fuel needs for the remainder of 2026. Since last Friday, we have of course seen a substantial increase in the jet fuel price, resulting from both a higher crude oil price as well as higher jet crack.
I will comment on this in more detail in a minute when we talk about our full year earnings outlook. Let's go there. In speaking now about our outlook for the current financial year, this is obviously not easy given the events in the Middle East. On the one hand side, I see the strength of our group and the progress we make in executing our strategy in all the dimensions and also in all the dimensions that we can control. On the other hand, I see what's happening around us, and this does have an impact as well on our financials.
The bottom line impact will depend on which effects are outweighing the others and also on whether those effects will change subject to the duration of the current situation. Being in the situation for only six days by now, obviously does not provide us with sufficient hard data points to draw final conclusions for the rest of the year. Of course, we have data points from the first couple of days, which we will gonna talk about in a minute. Let's go through the building blocks of our outlook. We plan to increase capacity by around 4%, and here also in a disciplined way. Clear focus will be on intercont routes, where we expect to grow in mid to high- single- digit range, while cont capacity will be broadly unchanged.
I do expect cost inflation to persist, but it will be partly offset by our transformation programs and the ongoing fleet modernization. On this basis, we expect Adjusted EBIT for 2026 to be significantly above the 2025 level, consistent with our commitment to delivering sustainable pro-profitability improvements. Now, let me put this into perspective of the Middle East crisis and let me describe to you what we are currently seeing. One slide before, we've shown you a fuel price forecast based on last week's Friday, and that is the way we always present it to you each quarter, including also the fuel sensitivity, the fuel matrix, where you can go along the axis and get an idea how things can move.
Since then, fuel prices have increased, taking a short-term perspective just for the next two months, current fuel price levels mean about a 20%-25% higher fuel cost for March and April compared to the underlying figures reflected in our EUR 7 billion forecast for the full year. For March, the impact, and again that's normal, for March, the impact will be further limited as about 60% of our physical settlements for fuel are priced at the prior month level. This does give us additional time to also adjust our revenue management approach. Having said that, broadly, in terms of fuel dynamics, we don't believe that fuel price levels remain in the long run where they are right now. We also have impacts from flight cancellations. Since 28th of February, we of course have stopped flying into the region.
These are 10 destinations. Overall, to give you an idea, Middle East traffic would have represented about 3% of our capacity in the first quarter. For comparison, in 2025, it was just about 2%. You can see that the overall impact is somewhat limited. We estimate about a EUR 5 million earnings impact per week from those cancellations based on lost business and cost of care. On the other hand, we are also observing positive earnings effect. Firstly, since last weekend, more people have been flying with Lufthansa Group Airlines instead of connecting via the Gulf hubs. Since the weekend, additional bookings on our Asia and Africa routes have by far overcompensated the cancellations we've seen on our Middle East routes. Over the past days, revenue intake for departures in March was about 60% higher than last year.
Global net revenue intake for the full year during those days was more than 20% higher than last year, indicating a positive impact in booking intakes also beyond March. We expect this situation to persist as long as the hubs in the Middle East cannot be fully serviced. Secondly, many people are currently changing their travel plans in the short term, and on this topic, we see the possibility that travel patterns might also change for longer. Potentially persisting security concerns around the Gulf region might also lead to more traffic within Europe or through European hubs or U.S. destinations. Thirdly, with a more than 80% hedge ratio, we are hedged to a higher degree than many others. This provides us with a relative advantage, especially compared to those who are not hedged at all.
Fourthly, a large part of the air freight capacity in the Middle East is currently affected. About around 18% of global capacity is not available at the moment. This means that also cargo streams are shifting, and Lufthansa Cargo has observed an increase in demand over the past few days. Moreover, we've seen rising cargo yields of 5% worldwide and +35% in the Middle East and Asia over the past few days. Even a further yield uplift from these markets is conceivable. More longer term, we might also see more shifts from sea freight to air freight when things are time critical. For me, the conclusion or the message is kind of clear. We do control what we can control, and we are obviously closely monitoring what's going on in the world right now.
Even in the light of the current situation, we are convinced that we can significantly increase our Adjusted EBIT in 2026. However, let me also be clear, the range of uncertainty has increased and there is also the range of possible outcomes. Let's now go back to what we control, that's our CapEx, our CapEx outlook. Net CapEx is expected to amount to around EUR 2.9 billion, reflecting the planned delivery of up to 45 new aircraft. That's the largest single year fleet expansion in our company's history. Adjusted free cash flow is expected to be around EUR 0.9 billion, slightly below last year due to the higher investment volume.
We expect 2026 overall to be a year of continued progress for the group on our path towards our midterm targets. Our businesses are well-positioned and on a clear trajectory towards long-term value creation. On that note, and knowing that, of course, 2026 will be at the center of our discussion, I believe I'd like to hand back to Carsten for further remarks on the strategic outlook.
Thanks Till, just a few words. How do we look into the future? Of course, based on what Till and I communicated at the Capital Markets Day back in September, when we announced our medium-term financial targets you are well aware of by now, centering around 8%-10% Adjusted EBIT margins. First lever of the four key levers I'd like to address is obviously airline growth in a profitable way, which means for us, more long haul than short haul. We actually want to grow the intercont fleet to 200 aircraft while we keep the short-haul fleet more or less flat. The additional required fleet will be provided by coordinating our hub traffic in the future centrally over all six hubs, which will give us a higher share of fleet passengers to intercont destinations rather than short haul to short haul.
At the same time, we are, of course, leveraging the one group approach beyond this example. We do see a 3% margin uplift from fleet and new premium alone, but there's also elements of the loyalty ecosystem and the ancillary push, which will pay into our midterm targets. Last but not least, the so-called OneIT, where we're harmonizing the IT network, at least across the six hubs. In many regards, even beyond our hub network airlines is another example of this second lever. Third, airline cost transformation. An operational excellence focus in 2025 has provided the stability I quoted or I mentioned to you before.
Starting in 2026, efficiency will be higher on the priority list. We do believe, including more modern aircraft, including, of course, lessons learned, and finally, enough staffing at the European and especially German hub airports, we will be able to show that we keep our unit cost despite cost inflation flat in 2026, as we already did in the fourth and last quarter of last year. Excuse me. Another element of this will be the fact that we grow fastest in those airlines with the best cost competitiveness. Think about Discover, for example, and Lufthansa City Airlines. Excuse me. Last but not least, the so-called fourth lever is the additional focus on MRO and Cargo.
You know our Ambition 2030 program in Cargo, by which we want to achieve EUR 10 billion of revenue with a 10% EBIT margin by the end of the decade. Also in Lufthansa Cargo, probably supported by the recent developments in the Gulf, we are looking to claim the top three position globally again, coming out of top five. Last but not least, defense was already mentioned, we strongly believe, again, with current affairs probably creating a tailwind here, that defense will be a very stable and highly profitable part of Lufthansa Technik to a higher degree. Last but not least, let's talk about a little bit more about maybe the single most important lever and most impactful lever we have, our fleet renewal.
You're aware we're taking in the middle or at the beginning, if you might say, of the largest ever step towards a more modern and productive fleet. We expect 45 new aircraft this year alone, more or less 1 per week. There's an unheard number of 27 wide bodies among them. That will bring us to a new tech quota across the whole group of one-third, with obviously resulting cost advantages and productivity gains. We see some light at the end of the tunnel of the Pratt & Whitney engine issue. As far as it looks now, we'll be able to bring down the number of grounded aircraft to less than 10, which is 30% less than last year. Coming to an end, getting ready for your questions.
You might share my view that the Lufthansa brand is an iconic brand in our industry for many, many years now, celebrating our 100th anniversary today. No doubt we intend to maintain this in the future, and part of that must be the further improvement of the customer experience. Be it the example of Starlink, which we are looking to offer to our customers as of Q2. Be it new lounges in almost all of our hubs and flagship lounge to be open soon in JFK, where all of our group airlines are more or less all of our long-range group airlines are serving the airport at least once a day. Overall, the further integration of ITA creating more synergies is a step towards that product improvement for our customers.
Overall, again, with all the uncertainties existing, we're looking optimistically into 2026, and now look forward to your questions and comments. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press star one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Jaime Rowbotham from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Two questions from me. Firstly, Carsten, I wanted to ask about these puts and takes, pros and cons of the current unfortunate situation. Till did a great job of running through some of them. Interesting to hear bookings to Asia, Africa overcompensators for cancellations to the Middle East. I just wanted to focus it maybe on the Transatlantic, given it's so important for you. Your U.S. competitors aren't hedged. They are likely raising fares, and hopefully you can follow that a bit. At the same time, though, I wonder if fares are going up at just the wrong time in the sense that some people might be nervous to travel at all, which could have a downward impact on demand.
Maybe you could just flesh out either what you've seen so far or what you think happens next insofar as that's possible. Second one for Till. Thanks a lot, Till, for just clarifying what might happen to fuel for March and April. I just wanted to ask if possible about the full year. On the fuel slide, you tell us you've, you know, as of last Friday, $71 for Brent, $26 for the crack spread to get to $7.2/MMBtu. Obviously, Brent now $88 and the crack spread about $100 /bbl , so it's costing more to refine than to buy the oil.
Hopefully, that won't last, the forward curves are pointing to a scenario that's not even covered by your sensitivity table where the jet crack part on the X-axis could double or triple versus what you show. You also mentioned in the footnotes the hedging you've got is part on gas oil and part on Brent, so you don't actually have the crack spread hedged. With that in mind, have you had chance to do any scenario analysis on what a mark-to-market type fuel bill might look like for all of 2026? Thank you.
Well, I'll go second first and then maybe on the puts and takes, Carsten, if you wanna add a little bit. Jamie, absolutely. I mean, this is top of mind question, how this is gonna evolve, and you are quite right in terms of hedging. We've got a split and you know that we usually hedge Brent with about 35% and gas oil as a proxy for jet crack with about 50%. It's true that obviously jet crack has moved up, you can almost say off the charts of our fuel matrix on the right-hand side. Here, I would just highlight and again, mathematically you can calculate all of that and we have done that.
The impact obviously, if you would imagine that it stays for the full year, is of size. On the other hand side, I also don't believe that this situation will gonna stay there for a long time. You can see also, and I'm sure you've looked at the volumes that have been traded, driving ultimately the crack price, the crack spread. It's on very low liquidity. Therefore, there was, I would also say a bit on the back of what President Trump yesterday evening said, to possibly also escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Ultimately, I do believe that this is not gonna stay for long at these levels.
Leading now into the other side of the equation, it's true that the hedge levels do we have give us a solid upwards protection. This differentiates us versus others that follow a non-hedging policy. I do expect that also yields also or in particular on the North Atlantic has got the potential to go up and increase.
Yeah, Jaime, Carsten here. I think you already kind of put it in your question. There are pros and cons, and I think it's very difficult right now to quantify them exactly after just a few days. Again, cost of cancellations exist, probably like EUR 5 million per week is our best estimate. At the same time, as you pointed out, we have a relative advantage on the fuel cost on the one hand. I think there's also historically a certain move of bookings towards highly trusted brands in times of crisis. We're definitely SWISS as the airline of Switzerland and Lufthansa, to a certain degree, will probably benefit from. Of course, the question is the overall potential softness in travel for us, European carriers overcompensated by the shift of travel from carriers in parts of the world where people don't want to go now towards us.
Hard to quantify at this point, but not completely, probably unexpected that will happen to a certain degree. As I said before, there will be flexibility in our network as we are now within days, putting capacity into China, into South Africa, and into Southeast Asia. Of course, we're happy to also reallocate capacity throughout the whole summer if needed. If, for example, the demand to and from Asia becomes so strong that the next best route to and from Asia is more profitable than the weakest route on the North Atlantic, we would move the airplane. I think it's way too early to discuss that now.
Let me add, maybe just one additional point, if I may, just to give you a bit of a holding line as well on the RASK side. If we would have spoken, 10 days ago and talked about RASK expectation for the first quarter, I would have said, currency adjusted, so FX positive, but including FX, slightly negative. As we speak today, with the net booking intake, that we've seen over the past few days, this has shifted clearly to the positive side. I expect that RASK, for the 1st quarter should reach positive territory, even including the unfavorable FX headwind in comparison to prior year. Remember, obviously, the U.S. dollar started to depreciate, just in the second quarter last year.
Very helpful. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Stephen Furlong from Davy. Please go ahead.
Morning or afternoon, Carsten, Till, and Marc. Congratulations on the results. Carsten, in the prepared remarks, I mean, you talked about the industry being more resilient to crisis than it used to be. Could you just amplify that? Then maybe just talk about the Allegris product and talk again about the kind of rollout of that product. I know there's been a lot of kind of news comments and reports about some delays and then not delays, and what the revenue kicker you're getting from that excellent product.
Yes, Stephen, thanks. I think I said this numerous times about the industry being more resilient before the unfortunate events at the Gulf started a few days ago, because unfortunately, already before that, we have more military conflicts in the world than ever before, since 1945. Whereas usually when there's a conflict somewhere, bookings usually collapse because people are afraid to fly and want to stay home, this hasn't happened. Not only not the last days, let's even go beyond that. We have seen, as you well know, record demand in the industry, basically since COVID. What is the background of this? I share the view of some of my American counterparts that for consumers, traveling has been higher prioritized since COVID as before. That's one element.
We definitely don't have a period of overcapacity due to the shortage of engine and plane productions at the OEM level. I think last but not least, you see more wealth around the world, not only in the saturated markets, but also in other parts of the world which airlines as served. I think all that combined, by the way, the last one is why, especially the premium classes, as you know, are booming now for many years. I think all that combined shows that even though the world has not become more stable, our industry has. Now to also the last days might add to this, because imagine this would have happened 20 years ago. I think you would see a very different booking environment than what we are seeing since last weekend.
Allegris, w e had significant delays in certifying the Boeing aircraft with our Allegris seats. We have a different manufacturer than the seats in our Airbus wide bodies are manufactured by. We wanted to split the risk many years ago, and also the capacity of none of the seat manufacturers was big enough to provide all of our wide bodies. Now these airplanes are coming in quick time. As I mentioned, nine are here already. By the end of the year, we have 36, I think, as I said in my opening remarks. We have 28 seats in the 787, of which 25 are now certified as the end of March. There is now only three seats which will not be able to be sold by the end of March.
We even now decided to pull that one week forward, giving us additional revenue opportunities by already having the seats open for flight a few days before the end of the winter schedule. That's only the 787 topic. As mentioned also, by the end of the year in the Lufthansa airline, 50% of our seats will either be Allegris or in case of the A380, all aisle extra seats. We are another manufacturer. This is now in full swing. We mentioned before we have 12% to 13%, 14% higher yields on these seats than on our regular business class seats. That's big. Also the auxiliary revenue increase, which we expecting for 2026 to a high degree, will come from Allegris was the first time they actually charge for different seat types in business class.
That will also be, I think, tailwind for 2026 and beyond. I hope that answers your question.
That's great, Carsten. Thank you.
The next question comes from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I'll ask two, please, both around technology. First of all, on IT, you signed in the last quarter for a new IT platform to implement across nine of your group airlines. There's an IATA paper that's been around for a while that talks about a 2%-3% improvement to RASK from a re-platforming like this. Is that the right way to think about the upside for Lufthansa Group? Is the incremental gain less given your work to date in areas like continuous pricing, for example? Second question is on the distribution side of things, specifically how are you approaching the decision about whether and how to sell through large language models. Are you planning to engage directly through an API or to rely on existing infrastructure, GDSs, travel agents, and continue to pay commissions?
Do you have a view on when you're likely to sell your first trip through an LLM? Thank you.
Okay, I'll make a start on the first one, and then I'll see how far I get on the large language model-based selling. Look, I mean, as you know, quite right, we want to embark on the journey of implementing on the ONE Order path. It will be a long-term journey for the industry and also us, but it is important to be amongst those ones that join the pack at the beginning.
We do believe that there are clear benefits on the IT infrastructure on the one end side, because I mean, as you know, the PNR standard, e-ticket standard, and the miscellaneous data standard gets basically consolidated into a single order that is more efficient and drives back office efficiency on the other end side, quite right. Once you've got this type of, let me say, Amazon order type model, marketing and retailing obviously benefits as well. I am aware that IATA quotes these figures of 2%-3% RASK benefit. To be honest, I find it quite early to take a view on this, but I do believe that principally, there are benefits also on the revenue side from better retailing.
I think particularly for us, what I believe is good, we obviously come with scale, when you think of passengers, that we've got, and whenever you touch these large scale transformations, when you get it for done at scale, it does give you normally a greater benefit. Look, on the distribution, to be honest here, and large language models, I have to admit, I'm not that deep into the status where we are. What I can tell you is that clearly we are advancing on many fronts, in the digital arena to improve customer servicing, through large language model-based trainings, bots. I don't know what the digital adoption right now is, but we are making progress on that front. Happy to come back and have a dedicated conversation on this.
All right. I'll take you up on that. Thanks.
The next question comes from James Hollins from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Till, on the turnaround update, maybe, I always see you slightly in charge of this, maybe I'm wrong. As you see it, where have you outperformed, underperformed so far on the turnaround program? You may not choose to answer this, but if I take the Lufthansa Airlines EBIT growth of EUR 250 million, which was a gross benefit of EUR 500 million, is that 50% net versus growth, gross benefit a good indicator for the full- year 2026, EUR 1.5 billion? Probably for Carsten, and I know there's lots going on, but I thought I'd better mention the strike you had in Q1. Maybe you could update on the cost of that, where we are on some of the open CLAs and whether this current situation tends to lead to a bit of a backtrack from some of the union aggression. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, turnaround, first to give you my kind of assessment, I am happy with what we have achieved last year. Again, it's not easy to get such a large scale program off the ground. The EUR 500 million gross figure, as you know, has come from several initiatives. We've got EUR 700 million in the entire funnel. Several of them obviously have gained traction and delivered in 2025. Let me say where were we strong and where maybe things will be moving in the future towards. Point where we were clearly strong and successfully executed was operational stability. You remember that was one of our big topics at the beginning of 2025. Get stability back into the production, into the system.
That is good for our customers, was good for our customers. You can see it in NPS customer satisfaction everywhere. Also in the significant benefits on the so-called IRAC cost charges and foregone revenue. That is sizable and that's a clear proof point, but also on many other smaller initiatives. Again, I wouldn't speak about EUR 700 million initiatives if it wouldn't be quite granular. We've made good progress. What's ahead of us is clearly the focus on productivity, and this is why I made it also a point on my chart, on my slide, and there we will continue to move capacity into our lower cost AOCs, Discover Airlines, City Airlines.
You can see the aircraft that we are moving and also starting operations for City Airlines from Frankfurt, there with big focus for 2026 and beyond is productivity. Now to your question, gross versus net. Look, it's hard to say to isolate it on a program level because we do have obviously underlying cost inflation drivers from a salary point of view, from a fees and charges point of view, therefore it's a bit of a harder ask to say how the gross is directly translated into a net. I do see us on track to get the EUR 1.5 billion in 2026 delivered.
Yeah, on the strikes, the number you're asking for, day of strike, like the one we just had, we probably estimate it to be around EUR 15 million. You might say that's a lot less than what we had before. Why is that? Well, there's less support this time for the unions going on strike, which results in more volunteers to continue operation. Therefore, we don't ground the whole fleet as we were forced to in the past, but keep our most profitable routes in the air, and that's reducing the cost. Looking ahead, we are in constructive talks both with our cabin union, as a matter of fact, happening today, and ver.di, our ground staff union, and also for the cockpit union.
Well, actually, we have now two cockpit units in Germany, but for the one which is affected here for Vereinigung Cockpit, we have offered even in a moderated fashion to talk about the biggest scheme of things, which right now has not been agreed to yet. But the individual pilots very much want to stop the shrinking of the main airline, which becomes more and more obvious as Till just pointed out with our shift of airplanes. I'm quite optimistic that eventually, that shrinking on behalf of the pilots should come to an end, which will require us to talk on the bigger scheme of things.
I don't see any strike action like the one we saw in 2012 to 2016 or anything, because there we just know too much about what the members want and believe that the answers of course can only be a reduction of the cost disadvantage of the main airline to the other LEOCs in Lufthansa. Whereas a strike itself the things they are asking for in the strike, we're not willing to give in the airline with the lowest profit would increase the distance and the disadvantage on the cost side. This will not be long lasting, I think.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Harry Gowers from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, afternoon. First question may be just related to Jaime's question on the fuel hedging. You know, can you just confirm, do you fully hedge the crack component, and that's all included within your comments on the March to April monthly impact? I think you said the gas oil hedging is a proxy for jet crack. Does that type of hedging basically fully cover the price increases we're seeing in the crack spread market at the moment? That's the first one. Second one, just on the ex-fuel unit cost. You know, you have this comment around 2026 ex-fuel cost is expected to be half of inflation for Lufthansa Airlines. Can we extrapolate that for the entirety, I guess, of the kind of new network airline segment?
Is there any reason why those other airline businesses won't be reporting a similar cost result? Maybe just related to that, if I could squeeze one in, what are you assuming for the union agreements and staff cost inflation in your overall kind of cost and EBIT guidance for the year? Thanks a lot.
Okay, maybe the comment on just union agreements, I'll leave to you, Carsten, and I'll go on the first question, on the second question first. ex-fuel unit cost. Let me be clear. What I said is indeed for Lufthansa Airlines, half of inflation is our target. Overall, as you will remember, we've stayed away from giving a group guidance on cost overall. We limited it to a specification just for Lufthansa Airlines. Of course, all of the other airlines, our business units, have got cost saving programs in place, but I don't want to give an overall cost guidance for the entire group. Going back to the first question, which is the fuel hedging.
Once again, we hedge gas oil 50%, so 50% is the element of our hedge, our hedging composition, and crude 35%. Gas oil is a proxy that is strongly correlated to jet crack, but it's true, currently jet crack is very high. We believe that the spread between jet and gas oil will come back to normal levels, and I think the spread currently is inflated mainly because of illiquidity in the market.
Yeah, Harry, if I got your question right, you wonder how union agreements would impact our guidance. I think it's fair to say they will not impact our guidance. Where we have talks, we kind of know w hat we are willing to offer and how that would result in financial outputs, of course, it's in our planning. In the last strike we had for the pilots in the mainline, we told them that as long as the mainline is not reaching its targets in terms of profitability, and essentially it's the lowest profitability airline in the group, there is no any financial room for maneuver to pay even higher pension benefits, which are already higher than the ones in the other airlines.
There's also no room for additional cost here. That remains is, of course, the cost of strikes, at the same time, the more strikes there are, the less airplane will be in that airline. I think there's almost like a natural hedge, if you wanna use the term from our fuel environment. The answer, again, to your question is that there's no impact on the guidance to be expected from the current labor conflicts.
All understood. Thank you both.
The next question comes from Axel Stasse from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, if I may. On the first one, coming back on fuel, apologies. How much of that fuel inflation can be passed on? Obviously, you mentioned your exposure to jet and gas or crack. But obviously the U.S. guys are not hedged at all. If fuel goes up by 10% approximately, how much of that can be passed on? Can we assume half of it? The reason why I'm asking is because I'm slightly surprised to see you were comfortable enough providing an EBIT guidance without a lot of visibility in the near term on fuel. I therefore assume, you know, you guys feel comfortable passing that on. Just trying to understand the extent of it.
Then the second question is, can you provide maybe an update on TAP? What are the latest news here, and how comfortable are you on TAP? Thank you very much.
Yeah, I'll take the first one. Just on fuel, once again, two comments I would add in addition to what I already explained. I mean, first of all, ticket prices are made at the market level, but we do see already increased yields also on the North Atlantic. Fuel price surcharges are being implemented. Now, how much of that exactly? I can't tell you. The situation is dynamic, and therefore I think it is just not prudent to give you a statement on that.
I think if in the future, fuel prices remain elevated, clearly everyone, and in particular those ones that follow a no hedge strategy or have got less hedge protection, will need to pass on fuel prices. That, in my view, provides an opportunity and allows for equally pass-through from our end of additional fuel cost. We have done first price increases already through the fuel price surcharge and have implemented them. Just one more thing. Cargo, wanted to speak about both segments. Cargo obviously works on a pass-through model as well, and there is literally, it's not on a daily basis, but within a week, prices get adjusted for the input cost of fuel.
Axel, there's nothing really new on TAP. As you know, we are in the process because we believe there would be a perfect addition to our multi-hub network. Also due to the fact that we are currently the weakest on the Latin American market. The overlaps are less than they would be for others, which probably has an impact on the antitrust approvals to be obtained. At the same time, there are so many open questions about the process and the outcome that it's impossible at this point to answer, is this creating value for our shareholders or not? If it doesn't create value, we will not do it. We don't need it. If it ends up to be a win-win of Portugal, TAP and us, we will maybe see more progress here. Nothing else to add.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, Till, if I can just clarify your comments around the impact from the Middle East on kind of near term March, April. Did you say that the higher bookings demand that you're seeing for Asia, Africa and all is compensating just the cancellation cost, or is it compensating cancellation costs and the jet fuel higher costs on the unhedged portion? That's my first question. Secondly, just going back to the transatlantic, Carsten, in your experience, how long does it take for kind of U.S. airlines to adjust their capacity in this, in such shocks on the oil price, given their lack of hedging? Thank you.
Yeah. Hi, Muneeba. Let me take the first question. Albeit I might not give you a totally conclusive answer on that. Yeah, first of all, let me go on the net booking intake and just run you through that. I've really taken the view on kind of what numbers do we see right now. Since last Saturday, our net booking intake has developed strongly, exactly as I said. When we compare these net bookings, which we have received between Saturday and Wednesday end of day, for the month of March, this figure is about 60% higher than one year ago.
My second statement on the inflow side was if I compare same period, those few days, net bookings for the rest of 2026, this figure is 20% higher than one year ago. Clearly, what I said on the negative side, the cost of the cancellations of the Middle East, we have comfortably covered. To your question now, does that cover as well the fuel cost? Look, it really depends on how long the fuel prices remain elevated, because I've equally given you a view on March, and March as such, while I said nominally 20%-25% higher fuel bill, as we obviously settle the physical fuel bill with a month's delay, you can actually knock half of it off for a month.
It's not that straightforward to say how an all-in looks like. There are puts and takes, and I think, we should clearly see, both of them, albeit, I'm not giving you a net figure right now because I can't.
Yeah, Muneeba. Carsten, you asked for my experience, and I think the things I experienced is twofold. First of all, the speed of reaction is a function of the impact on the traffic. Think about 9/11, it took us all only days to come up with a different schedule when the skies reopened than the schedule we had before because it was so obvious the impact is huge. I think this is a different situation here, where none of us knows how long the war will last, how long the impact will last, at which degree. I think it's worth to say that all of us have become much better in reallocating capacity to demand, also due to the lack of aircraft in general. What does that mean?
When you have a route which is not performing well anymore, you can more easily find another route to provide profitability and value for your shareholders than in the past, where maybe you already had loss-making routes and couldn't find something else because otherwise you would have done it before. I think with the profitability where it is also for the international business of the U.S. carriers, we're gonna see a very market-focused reaction on both sides of the Atlantic, which fuels our optimism.
Thank you.
Fuels our optimism. Sorry for my language.
The next question comes from Andrew Lobbenberg from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Can I ask about ITA? We haven't spoken about that beautiful, pretty picture on the slide of the planes. How are you thinking about the decision to take majority in general? How are you thinking about it in the context of the unsettling events in the Gulf? Can I just come back to the scale of current bookings? You've given us really precise figures on how bookings have come in for those destinations in the range shadow of the Gulf that have gained. What has happened to booking inflows for short-haul Europe? What has happened to booking inflows on the North Atlantic in that short time period? Thank you.
Look, first of all, on ITA, maybe I'll just divert a sec and just ITA has done a good 2025 organically. They've reached break even on Adjusted EBIT, which is positive, which is great. You can actually back calculate what also their overall net income was. Our 41% contributed with EUR 90 million on our side. I do see many, many benefits of calling early and integrating ITA faster. We've made very good progress throughout last year. As you can imagine, with the call option being open to be decided in June, we will keep our options open and we continue to assess and then take a decision nearer by the time and we'll communicate.
Secondly, on the different travel, your second question was on Europe and North Atlantic, in terms of sentiment, travel sentiment. We actually have so far not observed a worsening of travel sentiment or also bookings in intra-Europe or North Atlantic. Of course, it's to be seen.
Okay, thanks.
The next question comes from Ruairi Cullinane from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. What have you done to Middle East capacity this summer? Linked to that, should we expect the EUR 5 million per week cost of cancellations to tail off, even if the conflict doesn't come to an end soon? Secondly, are you any less comfortable hedging fuel through Brent and the gas oil and leaving the spread to jet fuel unhedged? Could you consider that in the future? Thank you.
First of all, Middle East. I've given you an idea of the sizing. Last year it was about 2% of our capacity. In Q1 normally that would've been 3%. Remember last year there was also a bit of on and off of flying into the Middle East, this is why it was 2% and we had it increased it a little bit. I think what I've given you now is a EUR 5 million negative impact while we are not flying, will rather go down, because it does include of course a view on the cost of care.
We took a view now of also those additional costs that is just on the ones where we actually need to care, where we need to support while also, passengers, guests are staying still and need to be repatriated or flown back. If it stays long, we will clearly reallocate capacity, and then even this element of what I called negative impact or lost business from Middle East will obviously go away. I would say this is not so much of an impact, medium term. In terms of strategy of hedging, look, I think I've described it probably to the fullest extent I can do on this call. We our hedging strategy is clearly designed through options and that's different to swaps where we want to participate also in the downwards movement and there was I'm comfortable with the strategy that we have so far in place.
The next question then comes from Antonio Duarte from Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on ancillaries. 15% growth year-over-year, clearly doing very well, namely with Allegris rollout. Could you give us some color here, where do you see these terms of ranges going forward? My second question is relating to the MRO. As you said, a bit of a margin compression seen in 2025, a bit of a recovery expected, namely from your defense, et cetera. Would you be comfortable with the full recovery from the margin seen in 2024? Any color on that would be great. Thank you.
Okay. Let me make a start just on ancillaries. We have explained what we've seen on Allegris, and, you know, the additional seat options and also ancillary sales overall. If I split this, I do believe that the ancillary sales as such has got substance to continue. Of course it's hard to be at a double-digit rate going forward, just the law of big numbers at one point in time. I would like to go back to the Allegris element within the ancillaries, here we clearly see the benefit of selling the different seat options. The main driver of that is obviously the number of aircraft coming with the Allegris cabin into it, and that has got runway and gives us longevity to continue to grow the ancillary sales category.
We always call it the big three, Antonio. Baggage, seating, upgrades. That I think will continue to drive auxiliaries up, as Till explained, with Allegris being of course a special push. MRO, you know that in 2025, MRO was suffering almost as the only part of the Lufthansa Group under tariffs, which, as you well know, for airplanes and engines don't apply. These tariffs, as we all know, have been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, at least they don't go forward. Hopefully, there will also be reimbursements, as we all know. That will be definitely one of the reasons why we believe we can not only get back to 2025, to sorry, 2024 margins in MRO, but we will continue to go towards the 10% we have planned for the end of the decade.
I'll leave that defense element out, which I, as I mentioned before, we'll see I think another support for the strategic development of Lufthansa Technik, even though it doesn't necessarily monetize short term. Again, we are committed to our 10% margin in 2023 and some of the ramp up costs we had in 2025 for Canada, for Portugal also won't repeat themselves. Overall, my optimism continues.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Marc-Dominic Nettesheim for any closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much for your questions, for your interest and for the lively discussion. We are happy to continue this from the investor relations side. We wish you a lovely afternoon and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.