German national carrier Lufthansa reported a third quarter profit of 218m despite what it called the “dramatic hike in the oil price.”
The airline also said it had turned round an operating loss of 154m for the first nine months of 2003 to an operating profit of 251m for 2004.
Its executive board said it remained “confident of posting an operating profit of around 300M” for the whole year.
The third quarter operating profit for 2004 shows an increase of 18m compared with the same period last year.
But the January-September results for 2004 show a 7.7% rise in revenue from 11.8bn to 12.7bn while traffic revenue rose a marked 13% from 8.5bn to 9.7bn.
Mr Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Lufthansa's chairman and ceo, said: “"The current improved figures cannot hide the fact that we need significantly better operating results in future in order to ensure our company's viability for the next generation."
He said a key factor in improving figures was the full implementation of the airline's action plan which envisaged improved earnings of 1.2bn up to 2006. In 2004, it had achieved savings of 354m out of 430 m earmarked.
Talks are still continuing with unions over further concessions.
Mr Mayrhuber also said passenger traffic was the core business of Lufthansa and the airline would be concentrating on increasing this to “fuel the expansion of the group as a whole.”
He indicated this could mean disposing of non-core activities which could include catering and package holidays where the airline has fared poorly.