Lufthansa’s 3Q2013 profit numbers all fall, but there is ‘clear improvement’: how to understand this

Lufthansa does not make it easy for the casual observer to understand its financial results. It has three different figures for what is generally called operating profit: 'EBIT', 'operating result' and 'normalised operating result', plus a fourth indicator, 'adjusted operating margin'. Here is how we paraphrase Lufthansa's 3Q2013 results communications.

"Underlying profitability is moving in the right direction, in spite of weak currency-affected yields. The SCORE restructuring programme is starting to have a positive effect, but is also bringing one-off costs. The transfer to Germanwings should lead to a profit in short-haul for the first time in five years and Austrian should report an operating profit for the first time since we bought it. Our 2013 operating profit should be EUR600 million to EUR700 million and SCORE should take us to our 2015 target operating profit of EUR2.3 billion. We should have a better view next year, when restructuring and product improvement costs reduce, but our recent aircraft order shows our confidence in the future. Trust us for now".