Lufthansa starts 2018 with new livery, strong ticket sales

Lufthansa has had a strong start to the year for ticket sales, the group's CE said Wednesday, also confirming that 2017 was a record year for the airline in terms of profit. "The booking situation in the first months of this year has been good," Carsten Spohr said. Spohr said the focus this year would be on its premium strategy at Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian airlines, plus rapidly growing budget arm Eurowings to fill the gap left by insolvent Air Berlin. Lufthansa's 2017 core profit target was to earn more than the 2016 record total of E1.75b (US$2.15b). Lufthansa's new dark blue plane livery, unveiled Wednesday, has caused much debate on social media after it was leaked last week, with some calling it boring and mourning the loss of the distinctive yellow colour from the crane logo on the tail of the aircraft. <br/>