After returning to profitability in the second quarter, Lufthansa now expects to be in the black in day-to-day business for the year as a whole.
Adjusted operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) should reach more than half a billion euros in 2022, the company listed in the MDax announced on Thursday in Frankfurt.
Above all, a further recovery in the passenger business should contribute to this.
So far, CEO Carsten Spohr had only promised an improvement in the operating result after the deep red numbers of the second Corona year 2021.
Due to the cancellation of thousands of flights, flight capacity in the current summer quarter should only reach 80 instead of 85 percent of the pre-crisis level.
The group intends to hire around 10,000 new employees over the next 18 months in order to avoid further interruptions in travel.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the company had cut tens of thousands of jobs.
"Together we have steered our company through the pandemic and thus through the worst financial crisis in our history," said CEO Carsten Spohr in a statement on Thursday.
"Now we have to further stabilize our flight operations."
Clear plus compared to the previous year
In the second quarter, Lufthansa generated sales of almost 8.5 billion euros, a good two and a half times as much as in the same period of the previous year, which was affected by the pandemic.
At EUR 393 million, adjusted operating profit was at the upper end of the range that the group had announced in mid-July based on preliminary figures.
A year earlier there had been a minus of 827 million euros.
The bottom line is that Lufthansa earned 259 million euros after a loss of 756 million in the same period last year.