Scandinavian airline SAS on Friday hiked its full-year earnings outlook as its third-quarter profit topped market expectations.
Pretax profit for the May to July quarter came in at 2.00 billion Swedish crowns ($219.7 million), slightly up from 1.97 billion a year ago, and beating the 1.77 billion crowns expected in a Reuters poll of analysts.
The company forecast full-year pretax earnings before non-recurring items of around 2 billion, assuming stable summer demand. Its previous forecast was for 1.5 billion to 2.0 billion.
Rickard Gustafson, the CEO SAS, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" Friday that his airline carried a record number of passengers during the period.
"More than 8 million people decided to fly with us throughout this quarter," he said. "This is despite an increased jet fuel price, roughly half a billion Swedish krona in this quarter. And also that we had some irregularities, so there were traffic disturbances during the peak summer."
Shares of the firm rose 11 percent in early morning trade.