Continental reverses quarterly loss to show profit=20 =20 Thursday October 16, 9:25 AM EDT=20 (Adds details, share price, byline) By Julie MacIntosh NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Continental Airlines (CAL), the No. 5 U.S. air carrier, reversed losses to show a quarterly profit on Thursday, as summer leisure traffic and regional growth pushed revenue higher and a stock sale boosted results. Houston-based Continental showed a net profit for the third quarter of $133 million, or $1.83 per share, compared with a net loss of $37 million, or 58 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding a $100 million gain from Continental's sale of stock in ExpressJet Holdings (XJT), a regional airline it once majority-owned, Continental showed a profit of 49 cents per share. Wall Street analysts had expected Continental's results to improve upon those at competitor Delta Air Lines, which reported a $164 million net loss on Tuesday and called on its pilots to agree to mid-contract talks over wage cuts. Continental's results fell within analysts' range of forecasts for an operating profit between 35 cents and 55 cents per share, with an average estimate of 42 cents per share, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Plc. Gordon Bethune, Continental's chief executive, forecast in a recent message to employees that the company was looking toward a "break-even scenario" for 2004. But the airline still showed a loss for this year to date, even after big gains for a security fee reimbursement and the stock sale, and was staring at a "tough six-month period ahead," Bethune said in a written statement on Thursday. Continental's quarterly operating revenue grew 8.6 percent to $2.37 billion as its regional Continental Express service expanded dramatically, boosting passenger capacity 42 percent. Shares of Continental, which have climbed about 75 percent in the past two months but dropped as low as $4.16 in March, closed at $21.39 on Wednesday.=20 =A92003 Reuters Limited.=20