Lufthansa is confident it can match last year's operating profit despite high fuel costs, and will use the crisis facing airlines to examine acquisitions, its finance chief said in a newspaper interview.
"Matching the 2007 results will be ambitious, but we are convinced that we will be still be able to reach it," Stephan Gemkow told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview published on Monday.
Lufthansa has said it is aiming to at least match the EUR1.38 billion euros (USD$2.14 billion) in operating profit it achieved last year, and Chief Executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber said earlier this month that high fuel costs had cut the scope for the carrier to outperform last year's operating result.
Gemkow said he expected crude oil prices to be between USD$80 and USD$120 per barrel in the second half of the year. US light crude was trading above USD$136 per barrel on Monday.
High fuel prices were forcing the industry to cut capacity, an effect already visible in America and Asia, which in turn was helping to stabilize prices, Gemkow said.
"The crisis is strengthening the strong and weakening the weak," he said, adding that this made it an opportune time to weigh acquisitions not only of UK airline bmi, but also of carriers outside the Star Alliance group.
Gemkow did not name other possible targets in the interview.
