Frankfurt - Shares in Europe's biggest travel company TUI AG slumped Monday despite the sale of the group's shipping business allowing the firm to swing into a first-quarter profit.

The German-based group booked a net profit of 553.1 million euros (755 million dollars) in the first three months of the year compared to a 167.2-million-euro net loss in the same quarter last year.

However, the company said it expects to report a substantial improvement in profit for the whole year partly as a result of falling costs. But TUI shares were down more than 6 per cent at 7.54 euros in late morning trading.

Boosting the latest quarterly results was a one-time gain of 990 million euros from the sale of its shipping business Hapag-Lloyd.

Excluding that income, TUI's operating result showed a loss of 399 million euros, compared with 299 million euros red-ink in the first quarter of 2008.

Similarly, the group result excluding the Hapag-Lloyd sale income showed a minus of 377 million euros in the first quarter this year, as against a loss of 267 million euros in the same period of 2008.

First-quarter sales fell 15 per cent to 3.08 billion euros from 3.63 billion euros a year earlier. (dpa)