Delta Air Lines

By Alison Sider Delta Air Lines expects a strong appetite for high-end travel to fuel profit in 2025, said Chief Executive Ed Bastian. The forecast comes as the airline posted better-than-expected revenue growth in the latest quarter as demand picked up. The airline’s sales of premium products rose 8% while revenue from sales of main cabin tickets rose 2% in the fourth quarter. Bastian said that the clarity of the election outcome helped restore travelers’ confidence and unleashed more corporate spending. The carrier said quarterly corporate sales rose 10% from a year earlier. “Overall consumer demand, particularly premium demand, has also been very, very healthy through the holiday season,” Bastian said in an interview. “The outlook in the first quarter is quite good.” Delta and United Airlines posted the U.S. airline industry’s biggest profits last year with a focus on upscale offerings for more affluent consumers. — Delta on Friday […]

By Callum Keown Delta Air Lines crushed earnings and revenue estimates amid red-hot travel demand in the fourth quarter, sending the stock flying higher. The even better news for investors was that Delta sees strong demand continuing in 2025. The carrier expects first-quarter revenue to grow between 7% and 9% year over year, with earnings per share of between 70 cents and a $1. Both those metrics top Wall Street estimates for a 5% revenue jump and profit of 77 cents. The stock rose 5.6% to $64.85 in premarket trading. Heading into Friday’s session, the shares have gained 20% over the past three months. The one disappointment may be Delta’s full-year earnings guidance of $7.35 a share in 2025, which is a little below the $7.44 expected by analysts. But investors don’t seem perturbed by that for now, instead focusing on a bumper 2024 and a strong start to the

Delta doesn’t see travel demand slowing down in 2025. CEO Ed Bastian notes consumers are increasingly opting for the airline’s premium products and experiences, a phenomenon happening across the industry that more airlines are leaning into and prioritizing. A snapshot of this demand came in November and December when Delta saw four of the top 10 revenue days in its history and double-digit growth in cash bookings driven by both leisure and corporate travelers. President Glen Hauenstein says revenue growth in 4Q came in ahead of its guidance as demand trends accelerated through the quarter and expects adjusted revenue in the March quarter to be up to 9% higher than 2024. Delta climbs 5.3% premarket.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian has a message for competitors who want to start chasing high end travel business: good luck. “It’s really hard to change course,” Bastian says. Rivals are adding more premium seating, bundling products to try to upsell passengers, and investing in free Wi-Fi, but Bastian says they may have trouble catching up to the investments Delta has already made. “We’ve been on this for years,” he says. “We’re not going to change course. If anything, we’re just going to continue to accelerate.”

Delta Air Lines said it expects fiscal 2024 earnings to be at or above the midpoint of the range of forecasts management had issued, but an early gain in the stock faded away. The news comes after a summer marked by disappointing earnings and a serious disruption to service resulting from a tech outage. The company said in a securities filing that it now expects full-year earnings to be at or above the midpoint of the range of $6 to $7 a share it had forecast. Delta also said that earnings for its September quarter are expected to be at the high end of the range of $1.70 to $2 per share management had predicted. “Lower market fuel prices expected to result in a realized fuel price per gallon that is slightly below the initial guidance range of $2.60 to $2.80,” Delta said in the investor update. Delta investors could

Delta Air Lines’ (DAL) claim that CrowdStrike (CRWD) engaged in “gross negligence” and “willful misconduct” related to the July global tech outage would be difficult to prove, Wedbush Securities said in a Friday client note. CrowdStrike’s legal counsel, Michael Carlinsky, said in a July 29 letter to David Boies, who is representing Delta, that any liability by CrowdStrike is contractually capped at an amount in the single-digit millions. Boies rejected that cap in a Thursday letter. “The contract does not cap liability or damages for gross negligence or willful misconduct,” according to Boies’ letter. Proving an entity engaged in gross negligence and willful misconduct has a high bar, according to Wedbush, citing discussions with legal experts. “That said, the situation remains fluid,” analysts led by Taz Koujalgi wrote in the note. Wedbush has an outperform rating on CrowdStrike’s stock with a 12-month price target of $315.

Airline expects total costs of at least $500 million Delta Air Lines Inc. late Thursday detailed the half-billion-dollar price tag it has put on flight cancellations and other problems caused by last month’s CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD) software outage. Delta (DAL) said in a filing that it will see a “direct” revenue impact of around $380 million in the third quarter due to the incident, mostly related to refunds for cancelled flights and to providing customer compensation in cash and miles. Its fuel expenses were lowered by some $50 million as a result of those canceled flights, Delta said. Delta had to cancel about 7,000 flights as it ran into problems with reservations and crew scheduling. The airline chalked up another $170 million in non-fuel costs, mostly related to customer-expense reimbursements and crew-related expenses, it said. Total costs will reach at least $500 million, the airline said in the filing,

Delta Air Lines shares tumbled 4.9% after its second-quarter profit dove from a year earlier, putting pressure on American Airlines Group, Spirit Airlines and JetBlue AIrways. Shares of Delta were trading around $44.57. American Airlines declined 4.7% to $10.63, while Spirit was down 2.1% at $2.99, and JetBlue edged down 0.9% to $5.67. Delta on Thursday reported second-quarter profit that fell 29% as its U.S. market saw more supply of seats than demand, as well as higher fuel costs at large. The company is the first airline to report second-quarter earnings

Delta and stronger airlines are starting to see spill over from the problems plaguing carriers in the budget sector of the industry, JP Morgan analysts write. Troubled carriers, including budget airlines and Southwest, are inclined to maximize flying capacity when demand is high to compensate for losses at slower times of year, the analysts write. “Much like a swimmer that has ventured too far from shore, airlines under duress can be sloppy on the pricing front as they flail about for oxygen.” Delta CEO Ed Bastian says he expects to regain pricing power as airlines throttle back flying plans, but other analysts are skeptical cuts will be big enough. “Maybe the industry stares those losses in the face and makes structural changes, but if history repeats itself, the more likely outcome is short-term tweaks in hopes of drastic change,” Melius Research analysts

Delta Air Lines is scheduled to report second-quarter results before the market opens Thursday. Here’s what you need to know. PROFIT: The airline is expected to post a profit of $1.57 billion for the quarter that ended last month, down from $1.83 billion in the same quarter a year ago, according to the consensus estimate of six analysts polled by FactSet. EARNINGS: Adjusted earnings, which strip out one-time items, are projected to be $2.37 a share, according to 15 analysts surveyed by FactSet. REVENUE: Revenue is forecast to rise to $15.45 billion from $14.61 billion in the year-ago quarter, according to the estimates of 11 analysts polled by FactSet. Shares slipped 2.7% during the quarter and were recently trading at $46.81.

BofA Securities analyst Andrew G. Didora reiterated a Buy rating on the shares of Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE:DAL) and raised the price target from $53 to $55. Yesterday, Delta reported a first-quarter 2024 operating revenue growth of 8% year-over-year to $13.748 billion, and the adjusted EPS was $0.45, above the consensus of $0.36. Both the unit revenue and unit cost outlooks were about 100 basis points better than the analyst modeled, which drove the EPS upside. The analyst thinks there were more pros than cons in DAL’s outlook, giving the confidence to raise 2024E EPS to $6.81 from $6.57. DAL’s demand commentary was better than feared, as transatlantic and premium products remain robust, each a revenue tailwind offsetting pressure from Latin America, noted the analyst. The analyst estimates 2Q24 capacity growth of +6.9%, the high end of DAL’s +6%-7% range, and unit revenue growth of -90 basis points, in line with DAL’s

Delta Air Lines’ (DAL) slightly better metrics in Q1 have driven better-than-expected Q2 earnings-per-share guidance, BofA Securities said in an emailed note to clients Thursday. Delta on Wednesday reported higher Q1 adjusted EPS and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates and initiated Q2 EPS guidance of $2.20 to $2.50, exceeding BofA’s estimate of $2.12. The company’s outlook prompted BofA to raise its 2024 EPS estimate to $6.81 from $6.57, according to the note. The company’s “better unit costs [for Q2] are encouraging and reflect solid operations and an increasing focus on efficiency,” BofA said. The investment firm raised the airline’s price objective to $55 from $53 and reiterated its buy rating.