Lufthansa wary of OTC regulations

Corporates across the globe have lobbied to ensure end-users are not subjected to new clearing requirements for derivatives. For Lufthansa’s treasury department in Frankfurt, ensuring it is able to continue to hedge its foreign exchange and interest rate exposure effectively is top of the agenda. By Joel Clark

Airlines have had a lot to contend with recently. Soaring oil prices and falling demand for flights from both tourists and business travellers during the financial crisis caused many operators to slip into the red, but the slow economic recovery, coupled with the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that closed European airspace in April, has also made this year far more challenging than many airlines could have envisaged.

German airline Lufthansa has been caught in the eye of the storm. Having racked