Lufthansa is on course for billions in profits.

After two years of losses that threatened its existence, the airline expects adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of more than one billion euros if nothing unforeseen happens, as it announced on Monday evening.

After nine months, she is already close to the goal of around 900 million euros.

So far, Deutsche Lufthansa had expected more than 500 million euros.

Reasons for the growing optimism are the development in the third quarter, the strong growth in bookings for the next few months and a foreseeable record result for the cargo flight division Lufthansa Cargo.

The rosier prospects allowed the share to rise by up to 4.6 percent, and in Xetra trading it closed 1.6 percent higher at EUR 6.58.

In the summer quarter alone - from July to September - Lufthansa ended up with around 1.1 billion euros, which is more than four times as much as a year earlier.

Strikes would have burdened the result with 70 million euros, the statement said.

Group sales almost doubled to 10.1 billion euros.

The summer of 2021 was still heavily influenced by the Corona crisis.

At 23.9 billion euros, Lufthansa's revenue after nine months is already well above the total revenue of the previous year (16.8 billion euros).

In the second quarter, the largest German airline returned to the black.

The collapse of business and holiday traffic in the corona pandemic had pushed Lufthansa deep into the red in 2020 and 2021.

The two years together, an operating loss of 7.8 billion euros.

At the height of the crisis, the state had to support the group with billions in the summer of 2020.

In the meantime, Lufthansa has repaid the aid in full, and the federal government has sold its stake with a profit of more than 700 million euros.

The debt was reduced by 200 million to 6.2 billion euros from July to September, Lufthansa said.

Thanks to rising interest rates, pension liabilities even shrank by 700 million to 2.1 billion euros.

The operating cash flow this year will be more than 2 billion euros;

previously, Lufthansa had only committed itself to a "clearly positive" adjusted cash flow.