The airline’s executives said Wednesday during a quarterly earnings call that increased commercial travel volumes throughout the first quarter helped Delta Air Lines turn a profit in March and boost airfares to 2019 levels.
Delta President Glenn Hauenstein said domestic business travel sales at the end of the first quarter had increased to about 70 percent of first-quarter 2019 levels, and the carrier expects that number to rise to its lowest level in the 1970s in the second quarter. In an internal survey of its corporate clients conducted by Delta, about 90 percent of respondents indicated plans to increase business travel in the second quarter, he said.
“We are seeing more companies implementing changes to travel policies,” Hauenstein said. “For example, domestic travel restrictions have been completely removed for all of our large corporate accounts. Increasingly, businesses are allowing increased sales of luxury cabins and redeemable products.”
Hauenstein described the first quarter as a “story of two halves,” noting that bookings increased dramatically after the President’s Day holiday in February, after the US COVID-19 outbreak began to wane. He said the increased demand helped Delta drive up corporate prices so much that they topped 2019 levels in March, the first month that has happened since the pandemic began.
Q1 . metrics
Delta reported $6.9 billion in passenger revenue in the first quarter, down 25 percent from the first quarter of 2019. The carrier reported adjusted operating revenue of $8.2 billion, which it said rebounded 79 percent from the first quarter of 2019, and $9.3 billion in operating income.
“We are very encouraged by the momentum we are seeing, and we remain confident in our outlook for meaningful full-year earnings for 2022,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said.
Delta expected system capacity in the second quarter to be around 84 percent of 2019 levels, up slightly from the 83 percent reported in the first quarter. Hauenstein described the small increase in capacitance increase as a matter of prudence.
“As we head into the year, if these demand trends continue, we have the opportunity to take another step, or we can move in a different direction if necessary,” Hauenstein said. “But I think he showed us that being smart to get to the bottom of this is the key to our success.”
The Delta-adjusted first-quarter fuel price of $2.79 per gallon is up 33 percent from the fourth quarter of 2021, and the carrier forecast second-quarter cost of $3.20 to $3.35 per gallon.
mitigation requirements?
Like many international US airlines, Delta has called on the US government to drop its requirement that travelers to the US test negative for Covid-19 before departure. Hauenstein and Delta EVP, Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary Peter Carter suggested during the call that the requirement could be rescinded soon, based on communications in management.
“Obviously we’ve been engaged throughout the administration, and I’ll tell you we’re getting a strong indication that testing will be phased out in the near future, which of course is very encouraging,” Carter said.
Meanwhile, Bastian said Delta “did not see an impact on travel demand” from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Delta Q4 نتائج Results
