sky

Delta reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday as thriving ticket sales were offset by high fuel prices. But it said that its March operations were profitable and that it had been able to pass some of the higher cost of fuel along to customers. “With a strong rebound in demand as Omicron faded, we returned to profitability in the month of March,” Ed Bastian, Delta’s CEO, said in a statement, adding that the company was “successfully recapturing higher fuel prices.” On a conference call later with financial analysts, he said March was Delta’s best sales month ever, beating a record set in 2019 despite 10% fewer available seats. Delta was the first major US airline to report its Q1 performance. Its shares gained more than 6% on Wednesday. Shares of other major US airlines also posted strong gains, with American Airlines up more than 10%. Delta said it recorded a $940m loss for Q1. Its adjusted operating revenue was $8.2b, which was down 21% from the same quarter in 2019 but beat the forecast it issued at the start of the year. The company said it expected revenue in the second quarter to be down only 3 to 7% from a similar period in 2019. Delta said strong spring-break travel, office reopenings and the lifting of travel restrictions had helped to improve demand in the first few months of the year. Domestic corporate travel was about 70% recovered in March, compared with the same month in 2019. International business travel was about 50% restored. Delta also said revenue from sales of premium seats on domestic flights fully recovered to 2019 levels last month.<br/>

Delta this month ended its $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees’ company health insurance, ending a pandemic policy designed to encourage staff to get inoculated against Covid-19. CEO Ed Bastian announced the policy shift on a Wednesday call discussing the airline’s Q1 results and outlook. “We’ve dropped as of this month the additional insurance surcharge given the fact that we really do believe that the pandemic has moved to a seasonal virus,” Bastian said. “Any employees that haven’t been vaccinated will not be paying extra insurance costs going forward.” Delta announced the policy last August to take effect November 2021. At the time, Bastian said the average hospital stay for an employee with Covid-19 cost Delta $50,000. More than 95% of Delta’s 75,000-plus employees have been vaccinated, according to the company. It also began requiring all new hires to show proof of vaccination. United had the strictest vaccination policy of any US airline, requiring staff to be vaccinated or face termination without an exemption for religious or medical reasons. Employees with an accommodation would be moved off customer service-facing roles, United said. More than 96% of that airline’s roughly 67,000 US employees were vaccinated.<br/>