Lufthansa Group increased its adjusted operating result by 47 per cent in the first nine months of 2013.

Excluding restructuring costs in connection with the Score program, totalling €168 million, and project costs for product improvements, some €30 million, the Group generated an operating profit of about €860 million in the period from January to September.

This is an increase of around €280 million compared with the adjusted result for the same period last year.

Including the project and restructuring costs, the operating result for the first nine months came to around €660 million.

In the same period last year, the group recorded an operating result of €907 million.

In 2012, Austrian Airlines’ transfer of operations to Tyrolean Airways as well as the settlement of pension obligations at British Midland, which was sold off to IAG, contributed a total one-off amount of €325 million to earnings.

The group succeeded in keeping revenue stable at €22.8 billion.

Despite a drop in the number of flights, capacity (in seat-kilometres) remained constant, as did the number of passengers.

The load factor for flights went up.

With the publication of the key financial figures Lufthansa chairman Christoph Franz said: “The Lufthansa Group has improved its result in the operating business for the first nine months of the year.

“In spite of substantial negative exchange rate effects and fewer flights, we have kept our revenue stable.

“We have also succeeded in reducing unit costs, in particular in our passenger business.”