	swissair reports lower profit and dividend swissair swsz z reported a pct drop in net profit to mln swiss francs and said that in line with its new flexible dividend policy it would cut its payout to francs per share from president robert staubli told a news conference that the first two months of this year gave hope that profit would at least equal last year s figure but said much depended on outside factors such as fuel prices and the exchange rate the fall was largely due to a mln franc loss on swissair s core flying business last year against a profit of mln francs the previous year he said the net profit figure was reached after receipt of some mln francs from plane sales compared with a mere mln francs in finance head martin juenger said he expected around mln francs from sales this year although said much depended on the speed with which it decided to sell its dc s gross profit for reached mln francs with mln francs subtracted for ordinary depreciation gross profits for the previous year had been mln francs with mln subtracted for depreciation including mln francs supplementary depreciation staubli said the result well below predictions made this time last year suffered considerably due to exchange rate fluctuations in particular the strength of the swiss franc while the negative effects on revenue of the sharp drop in the dollar were partially compensated for by cheaper fuel prices there was no such offset for the strength of the franc against other european currencies income and profit generated by services to these countries shrank by a very substantial margin he said exchange rate trends therefore hit us much more severely than most other airlines reuter 
