Lufthansa plunged to a nine-month loss of 32 million euros (47 million dollars) from a profit of 529 million euros over the same period last year, Germany's leading airline said on Wednesday. The result was better than expected as analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a much larger nine-month net loss of 231 million euros.
Sales over the same period fell by 13.2 percent to 16.2 billion euros, while the carrier's operating profit plummeted by 76.3 percent to 226 million euros, Lufthansa said in a brief statement to the financial markets. Lufthansa's "positive outlook for the year remains subject to very considerable risks," the statement said.
Full third-quarter results from the airline are to be released on Thursday. The German carrier said it was operating "against the background of a persistently difficult environment characterised by continuing demand and price weakness." An additional risk was posed by a renewed increase in oil prices.
Lufthansa is working to integrate two recent acquisitions, Austrian Airlines and British Midland, which together contributed 28 million euros to the operating profit. They might post losses in the coming months however, and it was therefore Lufthansa's own fourth-quarter results that would determine whether the group reached its goal of a positive operating result for the full year, the statement said. Shares in the airline group fell by 4.19 percent to 10.51 euros in afternoon trading, while the Frankfurt DAX index of leading shares was 1.51 percent lower overall.