Lufthansa Technik (LHT) late last week reported “significantly” higher revenue and earnings in fiscal 2022 of €5.6 billion and a record-setting €511 million, respectively. This was “despite a challenging environment” of supply-chain bottlenecks and skilled labor shortages, according to the company.

For the year, the Hamburg, Germany global MRO signed 706 new contracts worth €9.6 billion and ended 2022 with 4,242 aircraft operated by some 800 customers under service contracts. After trimming its workforce of 25,000 by 20 percent following the pandemic, LHT hired more than 2,100 employees last year and plans to add some 4,000 more this year. 

LHT’s VIP completions and refurbishment services have remained a bright spot throughout, said CEO Soeren Stark. “Over the last three years, we haven’t seen less workload than the years before,” he said. “There’s still a lot of demand in the VIP market.”

Given that backdrop, Stark is “very optimistic” regarding the VIP business going forward, and LHT is investing a “high double-digit million Euro” sum in a new interiors workshop and adjoining paint center at its Hamburg completion center slated to be completed in 2025. The backshops are housed in a 1950s-era complex, making renovations “impossible in economic terms,” said Stark. The new facilities will help optimize processes and create more efficiencies, he said.

Looking ahead, LHT expects the upward trend in air travel to continue to drive demand for maintenance services and predicts the global MRO market could exceed pre-pandemic levels as early as this year, with a total volume of some €96 billion.