2023-07-13 10:42:22 ET
Delta Air Lines Inc ( NYSE: DAL ) hit a year-to-date high this morning after reporting a record second quarter.
Delta Air Lines stock up on strong guidance
Shares are trending up also because the management raised its guidance for the full year on robust travel demand.
Delta now forecasts up to $7.0 of earnings per share on $3.0 billion in free cash flow in fiscal 2023. On CNBC’s “ Squawk Box ”, CEO Ed Bastian said:
The momentum has continued to build. We got a bit of break on fuel prices. Our team did an amazing job delivering best revenues, the best profits in our company’s history.
Its outlook for the current quarter also came in well ahead of Street estimates. The airline stock is still down about 15% versus pre-pandemic.
Delta Air Lines Q2 earnings snapshot
- Net income printed at $1.83 billion versus $735 million a year ago
- Per-share earnings also climbed significantly from $1.15 to $2.84
- Adjusted EPS printed at $2.68 a share as per the press release
- Revenue jumped 12.7% on a year-over-year basis to $15.58 billion
- Consensus was $2.40 a share (adjusted) on $14.95 billion in revenue
Delta Air Lines expects non-fuel unit costs to be down between 1.0% and 3.0% in its third financial quarter. According to the Chief Executive:
Last Memorial Day, the airline had over 800 cancellations through the long weekend. This Memorial Day holiday weekend, we had eight. So, the airline is doing a fabulous job.
What else was noteworthy?
Other notable figures in the earnings report include an 18% increase in traffic and 17.1% increase in capacity.
Load factor improved 100 basis points to 88% versus 87.2% expected. CEO Bastian added in his CNBC interview today:
We will see some seasonality. But I think the international business will continue, corporate demand is going to start to pick up. So, it’s going to be a strong Q4.
Note that Delta Air Lines had raised its outlook for the recent quarter just two weeks ago as Invezz reported here . And today, it reported results that topped even the updated guidance.
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