News
Germany’s Lufthansa airlines sees Q2 profits slide
Aug. 2, 2012, Berlin, Ger. - German airline Lufthansa blamed high fuel costs and new taxes on air travel in its home and Austrian markets for a 24 per cent decline in second-quarter earnings.
August 2, 2012 By Carey Fredericks
Deutsche Lufthansa AG said Thursday that net earnings fell to C229 million ($270 million) from C301 million a year earlier.
Revenue grew by 6 per cent to C7.9 billion and the number of passengers between April and June rose slightly to 27.5 million.
The Lufthansa group includes Austrian Airlines and Swiss. The Cologne-based company also holds stakes in Brussels Airlines and JetBlue of the United States.
The earnings were bolstered by progress in restructuring ailing Austrian Airlines, which churned out an operating profit of C26
million in the first half of the year. That compared with a loss of C64 million a year earlier. Lufthansa did not disclose quarterly
figures for the unit.
The results beat the consensus expectation for net profit of C153 million among analysts surveyed by FactSet, and the company's shares rose by some 3 per cent in early Frankfurt trading to C10.61.
However, Lufthansa reaffirmed its cautious 2012 outlook, saying the group "expects a revenue increase and an operating profit in
the mid three-digit million area.''
Lufthansa's second-quarter performance followed a net loss of C397 million in the first three months of the year, also blamed on
high fuel prices.
Lufthansa announced in May that it will shed 3,500 office jobs over the coming years to cut costs and boost lagging profits.
The cuts are part of a cost-reduction program that started at the beginning of the year and aims to improve the company's operating profit by C1.5 billion compared to 2011 by the end of 2014.
