(New York) U.S. airline Delta Air Lines on Thursday reported the best quarterly performance in its history thanks to an “active summer,” prompting it to revise its full-year forecast upwards. 2023.
“We generated record revenue and profitability in the second quarter,” company CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement.
“Consumer demand for air travel remains robust,” he said, unveiling new earnings per share guidance — $6-7, down from $5-6 previously — for the current fiscal year.
Because the rest of the year promises to be the same: Delta expects record third-quarter revenue (up between 11 and 14% year-on-year), with an operating margin around 15% and a net earnings per share (EPS) excluding exceptional items of $2.20 to $2.50.
Over the year as a whole, activity should grow by 17 to 20%. “The fourth quarter is going to be strong,” Mr. Bastian anticipated on CNBC.
Between April and June, EPS excluding exceptional items stood at $2.68, or 84% year-on-year. The consensus of analysts concocted by Factset expected 2.40 dollars.
Revenue jumped 13% to $15.58 billion and net income more than doubled to $1.82 billion, from $735 million in the second quarter of 2022. Consensus had expected $14.34 billion and $1 respectively. .54 billion.
“One of the reasons why this quarter was much better is because we were 6% more efficient in terms of fuel consumption per passenger than in the second quarter of 2019,” Bastian pointed out on CNBC. .
The company has set up the largest transatlantic summer program in its history with more than 650 flights per week to 32 destinations, marked by a 20% increase in capacity compared to the previous summer.
It expects to carry nearly 200 million passengers this year.
Thanks to these results, the group allocated $667 million in the first half of the profit sharing, paid in 2024, and accelerated the repayment of its debt.
Delta had announced in mid-June the payment of its first quarterly dividend since March 2020, a meager 10 cents per share. “This is an important milestone,” the company noted Thursday.