Air Berlin Q3 net income more than doubles

German airline Air Berlin Plc said Thursday its net income more than doubled in the third quarter as increased efficiency and lower costs offset a drop in revenue.

Based in Berlin, the company reported net income of ⁈illion ($143 million) from ⁈illion in the July-September period of 2008, an increase of 111 percent.

Revenue fell 8 percent, however, to ⁈llion from ⁈llion in the third quarter of 2008, as the downturn affected demand for airline travel.

Air Berlin is Germany's second largest airline after Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

The company expects "visible growth" in 2010 to be driven by further increases in global trade. However, it said some of the improvement will likely be a result of government stimulus packages and that an upturn is not yet completely self-supporting.

"Accordingly, there is no change in the risks that are relevant to the airline industry," the company said in its report. "In particular future demand for leisure and business travel remains highly dependent on the development of the global and local economies, unemployment levels and consumer confidence as well as on the availability of consumer and business credit."

The news pushed Air Berlin shares 0.6 percent higher to ⁈n Frankfurt afternoon trading.

Air Berlin said the number of passengers that flew with the airline decreased by 4 percent in the third quarter to 8.3 million compared with 8.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

Passenger load factor, a measure of how full airplanes are, increased 1.1 percentage points to 83.22 percent from 82.91 percent in the year-ago quarter.

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Net income in the first nine months of the year rose to ⁈illion from a net loss of ⁈llion in the January-September period of 2008. The company said this year's results were also helped by lower airplane leasing costs.

Revenue during the first nine months, however, fell 4 percent to ⁈illion from ⁈illion.

Nine month passenger levels fell 5 percent to almost 21 million and the load factor decreased 1.3 percentage points to 77.93 percent from 79.25 percent a year earlier.

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On the Net:

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