Lufthansa has responded to economic slowdown by reducing growth in passenger traffic for 2012 from nine to three per cent
Deutsche Lufthansa AG generated a stable operating profit of €578m in the first nine months of the current year, a drop of 5.6 per cent.
The fall brought the figure only just below that of last year.
Revenue came to €22.1 billion and net profit for the period to €288million.
The result was remarkable and achieved in spite of strong headwinds and a difficult environment for the industry, said Christoph Franz, chairman of the executive board and chief executive officer of Deutsche Lufthansa AG,
“Many of our competitors are struggling to make figures that are not in the red at the end of the year. We, on the other hand, are expecting profits in the upper three-figure million euro range,” he added.
Talking about the future strategic direction of the Group Mr Franz said: “We want to stay number one in Europe for the long term, so we are building on our strengths and also reviewing many options, including unpopular ones.
“We are looking for profitable growth and to secure the future of our Company with a financial structure that enables us to invest in our business segments, in our fleet, in products for our customers and in our staff.”
For the year ahead the company is initially preparing for slower growth rates in passenger and freight traffic.
This was the message from Stephan Gemkow, member of the executive board and chief financial officer at Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
He added that the slowing economic growth is also being reflected in new bookings. Weaker growth of four per cent was adopted for the upcoming Lufthansa winter flight plan back in September.
The group is now also adjusting capacity growth in the passenger business for the full year 2012 from the nine per cent originally planned to three per cent.
The group intends to keep managing capacities flexibly in the cargo business as well. According to Gemkow, the course of business was difficult to predict and tough competition is making the market environment difficult enough, even before the night-flight ban, Mr Franz said.
The largest segment, the Passenger Airline Group, contributed a profit of €169m to the Group’s operating result for the first nine months of the year, €49m less than a year ago.
Higher fuel costs and more fees and charges meant that the result was only slightly up on the previous year’s, despite a considerable increase in capacity.