By Scott Mayerowitz
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Lower airfares and rising salaries are putting a squeeze on Delta Air Lines.
Luckily for the airline, the price of jet fuel remains cheap and the Atlanta-based carrier was able to report Thursday a third-quarter profit of $1.26 billion, down 4 percent from the same period last year.
Summer is typically the strongest period for U.S. airlines and Delta’s earnings could signal and end of an extraordinary run of record profits for the industry. The issue is that this era of cheap fuel isn’t going to last forever. Delta warned in its earnings release that, for the first time in several years, year-over-year fuel prices will be higher in the next quarter.
At the same time, the industry is struggling with too many seats in the sky, lower airfares and increased costs for most non-fuel expenses including salaries and payments for new aircraft.
Delta is the second-biggest air carrier at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, behind Alaska Airlines. Seattle is Delta’s U.S. hub serving Asia.
The amount of money Delta collected for each mile that each available seat flew plunged 6.8 percent during the three months that ended Sept. 30.
The average airfare for each 1,000 miles passengers flew during the summer was $153.80 down 5.3 percent from the $162.40 Delta collected during the same period last year.
The number of available seats and the miles they flew increased 1.5 percent while the actual flying by paying customers fell 0.2 percent. A year ago, 86.8 percent of Delta’s seats were filled with paying passengers during the peak July, August and September quarter. That fell this year to 85.4 percent.
Delta said it plans to slow its growth to 1 percent in the next quarter and into 2017 so it can try to raise airfares. It hopes that its industry-leading on-time performance will convince travelers — especially higher-paying business fliers — to book with Delta and possibly pay more to do so.
While Delta is taking in less cash, it’s also paying out more.
The number of full-time equivalent employees rose 1.3 percent to 84,084. Salaries and benefits jumped 8 percent to $2.5 billion.
Delta also continued to replace its aging fleet of jets, leading to a 14-percent increase in its aircraft payments.
Overall, Delta’s revenue for the quarter fell 6 percent from $11.11 billion last year to $10.48 billion, falling short of Wall Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected $10.59 billion. The airline said $100 million of that shortfall was a result of an August computer outage that grounded its planes around the globe and led to more than 1,500 flight cancelations. Another $70 million in the gap came because of gains last year from currencies bets on the Japanese Yen.
On a per-share basis, the Atlanta-based company said it had profit of $1.69. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to $1.70 per share. That profit surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks was for earnings of $1.65 per share.
Delta shares have declined 23 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has risen roughly 5 percent. The stock has declined 19 percent in the last 12 months.
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