Lufthansa eyes buying used aircraft to reduce capital expenditure

BERLIN, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Lufthansa is considering buying more used planes than it would normally do in order to help rein in its spending in furture years, its chief executive said on Wednesday after the carrier reported third quarter results.

Carsten Spohr said low fuel prices and new technology to extend the life of aircraft, plus a good market for used aircraft meant Lufthansa was looking for more used aircraft, especially for short-haul operations.

"This will enable us to lower investments overall and stabilise investments over the next years, to ensure we don't have the whole fleet coming out of maximum life phase at the same time," he told analysts.

Lufthansa was planning to spend 2.7 billion euros ($2.99 billion) this year, but that will now be around 2.5 billion due to late deliveries of planes from manufacturers Airbus and Bombardier (Toronto: BBD-A.TO - news) .

Next (Frankfurt: 779551 - news) year, capital expenditure will rise to 2.7 billion as the delayed delvieries come in, but that will drop to 2.2 billion in 2018 and 2019, the carrier said. ($1 = 0.9024 euros) (Reporting by Victoria Bryan)