Alaska reports market improvement despite $431m Q2 loss

Alaska Air Group lost $431m in Q3 2020, although the company insists its passenger and financial figures continue improving month by month. In the same period a year earlier, Alaska posted a $322m profit. The latest three-month figure is the third straight quarter of losses for the group, coming on top of respective first- and second-quarter losses of $232m and $214m. It brings to $877m total losses for the year to date. “We are gaining momentum as we climb our way out of this crisis,” says Alaska CE Brad Tilden. “Each of the last six months has been better than the month before in terms of flights offered and passengers carried, and to date, we’ve kept our net debt unchanged.” The Seattle-based carrier group, which owns Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, is burning about $4m daily in cash – a result of the pandemic-driven collapse in demand for air travel. However, that figure is around $1m per day lower than seen in the previous quarter. Alaska logged $701m in operating revenue during the third quarter, down 71% from $2.4b in the same period last year. Alaska furloughed about 400 staff in the July-to-September period and reduced its payroll by 4,000 other workers through voluntary redundancy programmes. Additionally, in July, Alaska received an invitation to join the Oneworld airline alliance; it expects to become a member on 31 March 2021.<br/>