Delta Air Lines said Friday that it earned $828 million in the fourth quarter and that consumers are still snapping up flights and making purchases with their airline-branded credit cards.
Investors are starting to worry that as airlines become convinced that the travel recovery is permanent, they will add flights in a bid to grab a bigger share of the market and wind up driving fares lower. That is good for travelers but bad for airline investors, and it has happened many times in the industry.
However, it is unclear whether consumers will continue to spend freely on travel while facing higher prices for food, housing and other essentials. Even thoughFor now, though, most airline executives remain upbeat, as do analysts who track the industry. Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora said he expects Delta to boost free cash flow generation in 2023, allowing it to pay down debt more effectively than American or United. He said Delta is likely to increase its share of the U.S. air-travel market as it increases flights at its most important airports: Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City.Delta’s fourth-quarter profit compared with $1.1 billion in the same quarter of 2019, the last one before the pandemic devastated the U.S.
Excluding some items, Delta said its adjusted profit worked out to $1.48 per share, 16 cents better than Wall Street predicted, according to a FactSet survey of analysts.Delta also took in $1.5 billion from spending by customers using their airline-branded American Express credit cards. That was up 40% from three years ago.
Delta predicted that first-quarter earnings will be 15 to 40 cents per share, below the 59 cents forecast by analysts in the FactSet survey. Delta stood by a recent forecast of full-year earnings between $5 and $6 per share.
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