Lufthansa upbeat on pricing, shares rise

Lufthansa said it had seen a slight improvement in the price it gets for its tickets last month, the first time in several years it has not reported a decline, sending its shares to a near 3-year high. The comment came as the airline group published traffic data for March showing an 11% increase in demand thanks to growth at Eurowings, which it is expanding rapidly this year. "Pricing was slightly positive in March on a currency-neutral basis," Lufthansa said. A spokesman said the good demand was helping pricing. The last time Lufthansa described pricing as "positive" in its monthly traffic update was as long ago as Aug 2013. Lufthansa said Tuesday traffic measured in revenue seat kilometres rose 11% in March while capacity rose more slowly at 9.9%. That meant the load factor rose 0.8 percentage points to 77.2%. <br/>