Lufthansa had 6.8 percent more traffic in January than a year earlier, helped by growth on long-haul routes to Asia and the Pacific region, the German national airline said on Wednesday.

The passenger load factor was up 3 percentage points at 73.2 percent of capacity.

The rise came as traffic grew faster than the 2.4 percent overall increase in capacity for the month.

While capacity was cut by 5.4 percent in Europe and by 1.2 percent to the Americas, additional routes from the German city of Munich to Asia and an extra daily flight to South Africa led to growth rates of almost 13 percent in Asia and Africa.

The number of passengers Lufthansa carried last month increased 1.2 percent to 3.55 million.

The amount of air freight and post carried rose 6.5 percent to 127,000 tonnes, the airline added.

But the cargo load factor slipped 1.4 percentage points to 63.6 percent of capacity as demand failed to keep pace with a 14 percent increase in capacity resulting from the marketing of space in the aircraft holds of US Airways and European partners.