ZURICH - German airline Lufthansa's subsidiary Swiss International Air Lines expects to be profitable by the middle of the year as it restructures its operations, its chief executive told a Swiss newspaper in an interview.

Swiss said this month it would cut its fleet by 15% and its workforce by up to 780 on top of a reductions already announced as it responds to the collapse in passenger numbers caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Swiss is trying to optimise operations so that every flight is profitable, which could entail combining two flights with low bookings or using smaller aircraft at short notice, Chief Executive Dieter Vranckx told the SonntagsZeitung.

"In this way, we improve the profitability of our flights. However, this does not mean that we are currently profitable as a company. For that, we would need 50% of the capacity of 2019. We assume that we will achieve that in the summer," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by David Clarke) ((Michael.Shields@thomsonreuters.com; +41 41 528 3630; Reuters Messaging: michael.shields.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))