airberlin increases third quarter profit

airberlin, Germany’s second-largest airline company, significantly improved its net income for the traditionally strong third quarter, in comparison with the previous year. At the same time, it was able to offset strongly increasing external cost through the successful efficiency-improvement program “Shape & Size”, which will lead to an improvement of €230m in operations this year. In the third quarter, airberlin increased its net income to €66.6m (2011: €30.2m), an increase of more than 120% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The operating result improved by 4.5% to €101.2m (€96.8m). Revenue increased by 1.4% over the previous year, to €1,395.1m (€1,375.5m), despite a targeted capacity reduction of 5.4%. Capacity utilization increased slightly by 0.4 points to 84.54% (84.14%). Yield improved by 6.0% to €121.79 (€114.86). EBITDAR increased by 3.8% to €279.5m (€269.3m). Total equity at the end of the quarter amounted to €186.3m, which corresponds to an equity ratio of 8%.