Delta sees a turn toward profit, and carriers’ shares soar

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/>