Berlin: Germany’s Lufthansa has lowered its profit guidance for 2015 for the second time this year, due to a stuttering global economy and falling ticket prices, and said any further strikes could also impact the target for this year.
The airline, Europe’s largest by revenue, said it now expected its 2015 operating profit to be “significantly above” the 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) seen for 2014, compared with a previous forecast for 2 billion. Even before Thursday’s warning, analysts had on average predicted operating profit of 1.5 billion euros for Lufthansa in 2015, according to a Reuters poll. The airline, which is expanding low-cost operations and reducing costs to better compete with budget carriers and Gulf rivals, is also being affected by inflation in pension costs, swings in oil prices and foreign exchange rates, it said.
