Between February 2025 and January 2026, Lufthansa carried 5.6 million passengers to/from the US. According to the US Department of Transportation, it was the Star Alliance member’s fifth-best 12-month period on record. However, traffic was 11% lower than before the pandemic.

Lufthansa is the fifth-largest operator between Europe and the US. Only Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and British Airways carried more passengers in the examined period. However, given the sheer size of the overall market, the German giant’s share was only 7%. One in 14 passengers flew it.

Lufthansa’s US Result Summarized

Credit: Denver International Airport

In the 12 months to January 2026, the carrier’s overall US load factor (technically, seat factor) was 83.6%. This says relatively little in itself. It is always about how it was achieved. Of course, particularly low results may speak volumes. Where that’s the case, such as some entries later in the article, additional context is usually critical in understanding it.

Lufthansa’s result was marginally higher than all airlines operating between Europe and the US (83.1%). It underperformed compared to some larger carriers: Delta (85.8%), BA (84.4%), and American (84.3%). However, Lufthansa might have had higher fares and yields. The German carrier’s figure was slightly higher than for all carriers flying between Germany and the US (82.7%).

It did better than most other Lufthansa Group members, including SWISS (81.6%), Austrian Airlines (79.9%), and Brussels Airlines (77.9%), although the leisure-driven Discover’s result was marginally higher (83.8%). These are just numbers. You can understand why it should not be considered in isolation.

Lufthansa’s Bottom-Five US Routes By Loads

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With only a 56.1% load, Frankfurt Airport to Minneapolis was by far the worst-performing market in this sense. Some 13,517 round-trip passengers were carried. Lufthansa’s frames were deployed to Minnesota between June 2024 and April 2025. It was, therefore, only just included. The route switched to Discover in May last year, with that carrier continuing to serve Minneapolis — just on a seasonal, rather than a year-round, basis. The DOT shows that Discover filled 77.9% of seats on this route in the examined period.

In second place with 74.0% was Munich-Boston (220,498 passengers), followed by Munich-Seattle with 75.6% (71,324 passengers), Munich-San Francisco with 76.3% (174,580 passengers), and Munich-Washington Dulles with 76.8% (189,984 passengers).

All except one of those four routes have been served for a long time. The exception is Seattle, which joined Lufthansa’s map two years ago. Dulles’ result was influenced by switching to the 509-seat A380 in 2024. This depressed the load by several percentage points, but would have increased the overall revenue per flight.

It is notable that the second to fifth-lowest markets were all from Lufthansa’s second-busiest hub. When all the carrier’s US routes from Munich are considered, the average load was 81.1%, against 85.4% from Frankfurt. Part of the reason is more seats per departure, which is influenced by using the A380. Cirium Diio data shows that the Bavaria hub has 343 seats per flight, against 310 from Frankfurt.

Lufthansa’s Sixth To Tenth-Ranked Routes By Load

Credit: Denver International Airport

With 77.6% of seats filled, Munich to Denver was sixth. 193,377 passengers were transported, which was up by a quarter compared to the prior 12 months. However, due to switching to the A380, the load fell by seven points. To help remedy this, the superjumbo has been scheduled for nearly half as many flights in 2026, which is because the operating period has been reduced significantly. This contributes to the route’s available capacity falling by 6% year-over-year. Expect more changes if it does not improve sufficiently.

In seventh place is Frankfurt-Atlanta with 78.9% (142,426 passengers), followed by Frankfurt-Boston with 80.0% (249,259 passengers), Munich-Los Angeles with 80.5% (277,420 passengers), and Frankfurt-Seattle with 82.4% (142,929 passengers).

It is worth mentioning three relatively new routes, none of which were in the bottom ten. In the examined 12 months, 82.6% of Frankfurt-Raleigh/Durham seats were filled (89,976 passengers). This route began in 2024. The load on Munich-San Diego, which launched in 2022, was 84.2% (136,452 passengers). Frankfurt-St. Louis, which started in 2022, was at 88.1% (70,135 passengers). The link to Missouri may suffer in 2026, following British Airways’ entry from London Heathrow and Lufthansa increasing peak frequencies to be more competitive.