Deutsche Lufthansa Lifts Full-Year Outlook
October 19 2016 - 2:50PM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—German airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG late Wednesday
raised its full-year earnings forecast, backtracking partially on a
profit warning issued only three months ago.
Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes this year are
expected to be roughly on part with last year's 1.8 billion-euro
($2 billion) level, Germany's largest airline said. Lufthansa
credited better-than-expected short-term business travel bookings
in September.
The reversal punctuates the high level of volatility European
airlines are trying to manage.
The revised outlook remains below the projection Lufthansa had
given earlier in the year, when it promised investors a slight
improvement in earnings this year. But in July, after terrorist
attacks in Europe spooked travelers, Lufthansa warned profit could
fall below 2015's level.
European airlines have issued a flurry of profit warnings in
recent months amid an unusually challenging time for the industry.
Overcapacity has driven down ticket prices, terror attacks have
weighed on demand and repeated air-traffic-control strikes have led
to thousands of flight cancellations.
Britain's vote to leave the European Union has created further
turmoil, causing a slump in the British currency that has weighed
on airlines serving the U.K. Ryanair Holdings PLC, Europe's biggest
discount airline, on Tuesday said its profit in the fiscal year
ending March 31, 2017, would advance more slowly than expected.
British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group
SA and Air France-KLM SA are among other European carriers to issue
profit warnings in the past four months.
Lufthansa said measures it took to reduce capacity as well as
other adjustments have been successful. Still, it cautioned
"political and economic uncertainties continue to significantly
burden long-term bookings, especially on long-haul routes to
Europe." Projecting short-term bookings remained difficult, it
said, would could spur "significant volatility in earnings going
forward."
Lufthansa said sales in the January through September period
fell slightly to €23.9 billion from €24.3 billion in the year-prior
period. The carrier generated adjusted earnings of €1.7 billion, or
€16 million below the prior-year level. Earnings at the core
passenger airline unit rose 4% to €1.4 billion.
Earnings have benefited from a €798 million drop in the
airline's fuel bill in the nine months compared with the same
prior-year period.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 19, 2016 14:35 ET (18:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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