Frankfurt - Lufthansa, Germany's number one airline, said Friday that its passenger numbers were down in January as the carrier cut back capacity.
Lufthansa said in a statement it carried 6 824 million passengers in January, 3.6% fewer than during the same month last year.
At the same time, the airline cut back capacity by 4.1% so that the so-called seat-load factor, which measures the number of seats filled on flights, increased by 0.9% point to 74.6%, the statement said.
Lufthansa - which also owns Austrian Airlines and SWISS - said the number of passengers on Lufthansa-only flights fell by 4.8% to 4.854 million last month.
Austrian Airlines passengers decreased by 2.3% to 723 000, but the number of passengers flying with SWISS edged up by 0.2% to 1.246 million.
The volume of freight transported by its Lufthansa Cargo unit slid by 8.3% to 115 000 tonnes last month, the statement added.
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