Lufthansa confirms targets, to expand low-cost ops

German airline Lufthansa said Wednesday it is sticking to recently revised full-year profit targets and planning to boost its operations in the low-cost sector.
Lufthansa said in a statement that despite the investment needed for a raft of new strategic measures, it "remains confident of its revised business projections for 2014 and 2015.
"The executive board expects to report an operating profit of around 1.0 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for the current year."
Just last month, Lufthansa cut its earnings targets for this year and next year in the face of disappointing developments in passenger and freight business, and financial fallout from strikes.
But to meet the targets, the airline would scale back the planned expansion of its passenger traffic capacity, withdraw a number of aircraft and cut its freight capacity, the statement explained.
Lufthansa also unveiled plans to beef up its presence in the low-cost sector.
"In the dynamic and highly price-sensitive market segments, our current platforms only enable us to exploit the growth potential to a limited extent, in view of their sometimes over-rigid cost structures," said chief executive Carsten Spohr.
"That's why we are now seeking to tap new growth areas."
Lufthansa's low-cost platform at present is is known as Germanwings.