Lufthansa: third-quarter profit beats consensus; shares jump

(CercleFinance.com) - Lufthansa has posted better-than-expected third-quarter results and has confirmed its full-year 2019 guidance, which has sent its shares up as much as 7% on Thursday.


The German airline said that its third-quarter results were only slightly below last year's level, despite the economic slowdown and higher fuel costs.

Lufthansa reported adjusted EBIT of 1.3 billion euros over the past quarter, slightly below last year's 1.4 billion euros.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 1.2 billion euros. Third-quarter revenues increased by 2% to 10.2 billion euros.

Lufthansa - which owns airlines such as Eurowings, Germanwings, and SWISS - confirmed its previous guidance for 2019, for which it expects to report adjusted EBIT of between 2 billion and 2.4 billion euros.

It expects a single-digit increase in total revenues for the year.

Lufthansa also warned that around 180,000 passengers would be affected on Thursday and Friday by 1,300 flight cancellations due to strikes by its cabin staff.

The market ignored the news, with the share taking off - up 7.2% at 17.3 euros - in early trading on Thursday morning.

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