Airlines: Lufthansa burns cash, Wizz sees rebound

Lufthansa is set to burn through even more cash.

The German airline says it’s going to see more money flow out in the fourth quarter than it did in the third.

It says the monthly cash drain could go as high as 350 million euros, or about 414 million dollars.

The glum outlook came as the firm posted a net loss for the third quarter of 2.4 billion dollars.

Over the period it was operating barely a fifth of last year’s capacity.

Chief Executive Carsten Spohr called the outlook for the winter months ‘hard and challenging’.

The airline doesn’t expect traffic to return to pre-crisis levels before 2025.

It’s aiming to cut 22,000 full-time jobs.

Budget carrier Wizz continues to strike a very different note though.

The Hungary-based airline plans to fly as much as half of last-year’s capacity over the winter.

And with 1.9 billion dollars of cash in hand says it could survive for two years without flying at all.

Wizz expects demand tot rebound in the spring, but wasn’t immune to losses this year.

For the six months to the end of September it posted a deficit of about 171 million dollars.

Wizz shares were up 1.6% by lunchtime Thursday.

Lufthansa was down close to half a percent.