DAL - Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-04-10 13:22:10 ET
Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
April 10, 2024 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Julie Stewart - Vice President, Investor Relations
Ed Bastian - Chief Executive Officer
Glen Hauenstein - President
Dan Janki - Chief Financial Officer
Peter Carter - Executive Vice President, External Affairs
Tim Mapes - Senior Vice President Chief Communications Officer
Conference Call Participants
Duane Pfennigwerth - Evercore ISI
Mike Linenberg - Deutsche Bank
Scott Group - Wolfe Research
Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley
Helane Becker - TD Cowen
Andrew Didora - Bank of America
Jamie Baker - JPMorgan
Brandon Oglenski - Barclays
Conor Cunningham - Melius Research
Savi Syth - Raymond James
David Vernon - Bernstein
Sheila Kahyaoglu - Jefferies
Stephen Trent - Citi
Leslie Josephs - CNBC
Mary Schlangenstein - Bloomberg News
Presentation
Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Air Lines March Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Matthew, and I'll be your coordinator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until we conduct a question-and-answer session following the presentation. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to turn the conference over to Julie Stewart, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Julie Stewart
Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our March quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining us from Atlanta today are: CEO, Ed Bastian; our President, Glen Hauenstein; and our CFO, Dan Janki. Ed will open the call with an overview of Delta's performance and strategy, and Glen will provide an update on the revenue environment, Dan will discuss costs and our balance sheet. After the prepared remarks, we'll take analyst questions. We ask you to please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up, so we can get to as many of you as possible. And after the analyst Q&A, we'll move to our media questions.
Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that may cause such differences are described in Delta's SEC filings. We'll also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, and all results exclude special items, unless otherwise noted. You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on the Investor Relations page at ir.delta.com.
And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.
Ed Bastian
Well, thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today.
Earlier this morning, we reported our March quarter results posting pre-tax earnings of $380 million or $0.45 per share, a $0.20 improvement over last year, and revenue that was 6% higher and a new record for first quarter. Free cash flow was $1.4 billion and we delivered a return on invested capital of nearly 14%, putting Delta's returns in the top half of the S&P 500.
We are delivering industry-leading operational reliability and have widened the gap to our competition. Last summer, we made forward-leaning investments in the operation. And since then, our teams have delivered operational performance that is among the best in our history, with mainline cancellations down 85%, setting new records for completion factor in both the fourth quarter and the first quarter. I'd like to sincerely thank Delta's 100,000 people for your dedication, professionalism, and hard work in delivering these outstanding results....
Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript