LUFTHANSA TREBLES FIRST-HALF OPERATING PROFIT

LUFTHANSA TREBLES FIRST-HALF OPERATING PROFIT    German airline Lufthansa said its first-half operating profit more than tripled to 332 million euro ($ million), due to extensive cost-cutting and consolidation of operations.
   The company cut its after-tax net loss to 27 million euro ($ million), down from 47 million euro for the first half of 2001.
   Following the first-half results, which bettered analysts expectations, Lufthansa has raised its forecasts for full-year operating result will be 500 million euro ($ million), up from its original forecast of 400 million euro.
   'Should the German economy pick up in the second half of the year, the result could turn out to be even better,' Lufthansa said.
   Revenues for the first six months of 2002 improved 4.7 percent to 8.2 billion euro ($ billion), while Lufthansa's traffic revenue fell 5.8 percent to 5.9 billion euro ($ billion). The airline cut the capacity of its airlines to meet smaller demand and boost the rate of utilization of aircraft. Consequently, capacity remains about 10 percent below last year.
   The cost-cutting measures helped slow the growth of expenses, as they increased 3.0 percent to 8.2 billion euro ($ billion).
   'Our capacity and cost management measures, plus the 'D-Check' program, paved the way for this success and proved to be the right approach,' said Jurgen Weber, Lufthansa's chairman and chief executive officer.
   Following better-than-anticipated results from Dutch carrier KLM and British Airways seems to point out that European airlines are rebounding more quickly in the post-Sept. 11 environment than U.S. airlines. US Airways filed for Chapter 11 protection in July and United Airlines, a partner with Lufthansa in the Star Alliance, said it may be forced to declare bankruptcy as well.