Southwest on Thursday joined other airlines in forecasting that strong travel demand will continue but warned that delays in new aircraft deliveries from Boeing could persist into 2024. “While there’s noise regarding whether we are headed into a recession or not or whether we may even be in one now, we have not seen any noticeable impact on our booking and revenue trends,” CEO Bob Jordan said on the company’s quarterly call. The airline reported a $277m profit for Q3 on record revenue of $6.22b, up nearly 33% from last year, despite an $18m impact from Hurricane Ian. Southwest’s shares rose 2.7% on Thursday, while the broader market fell. Airlines this month have forecast further strength in bookings through at least the end of the year. Record revenues have helped carriers cover higher costs, a reversal for one of the hardest-hit sectors in the Covid-19 pandemic. Southwest forecast a jump in revenue for the last three months of the year of between 13% and 17%, compared with 2019 levels. It expects capacity to be down about 2% from three years earlier. The Dallas-based airline said it expects unit costs excluding fuel to be down next year compared with full-year 2022, but said that pilot shortages are limiting flying, which keeps costs up. Supply chain problems, labor shortages and training backlogs have hindered airplane manufacturers from ramping up production to meet the travel boom, capping airlines’ growth, a factor that could keep airfares elevated.<br/>
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SkyWest made a $48m profit in Q3 despite its “crew imbalance” related to the global pilot shortage, CE Chip Childs said 27 October. The St George, Utah-based SkyWest generated revenue of $789mn in the three months ending 30 September, the airline said during its Q3 earnings call. The year-on-year increase compared with SkyWest’s revenue of $745m in Q3 2021 is due in part to adding 33 Embraer 175s to its operations in the past year, the airline says. SkyWest expects delivery of four more E175s in Q4. Demand for air travel remains “exceptionally high,” Childs says, though SkyWest has been unable to “fully monetize this demand” due to the pilot shortage. “We expect that the timing required for training and upgrades will likely constrain production into late 2023 and early 2024,” he says. As such, SkyWest expects to be only “slightly profitable” in the fourth quarter and to make “modest profits” throughout 2023, adds CFO Robert Simmons. The airline is also working with the US Department of Transportation to authorise its subsidiary charter operation, SkyWest Charter, with plans to begin charter flights to secondary cities as early as Q1 2023. The proposal would allow SkyWest to hire pilots with less experience than required for scheduled operations, potentially helping address its shortage of pilots.<br/>
Paraguay's aviation authority said on Thursday it had opened an investigation after a LATAM Airline plane's nose was destroyed during a severe storm that forced it to make an emergency landing. Flight LA1325, operated by LATAM Airlines Paraguay, had been caught in severe weather while flying to Asunción from Santiago de Chile late on Wednesday. Videos and images on social media showed the airborne aircraft shaking badly while lightning flashed outside. The tip of the plane's nose was shattered and the windshield had small cracks, the head of Paraguay's National Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DINAC), Félix Kanasawa, told local radio. "This issue is under investigation, both on the DINAC side and on the side of the airline," Kanasawa said. The General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics of Chile said on Twitter that the aircraft, an Airbus 320, made an emergency landing "due to extreme and unforeseen weather conditions".<br/>
Brazilian airline Gol on Thursday reported a narrower Q3 net loss on a yearly basis even as it was heavily hit by currency swings in the period, and provided some updated forecasts for 2022 in order to reflect its current scenario. Shares of Gol rose more than 7% after its earnings report, making it one of the top gainers on Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index (.BVSP), which was up 0.8%. Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA, as the company is formally known, posted a net loss of 1.55b reais ($287.84m) in the quarter ended in September, narrowing from a loss of 2.52b reais in the same period last year. The company said the bottom line was affected by foreign exchange losses, which reached a total 738m reais in the quarter. On the other hand, the carrier managed to deliver a record quarterly net revenue, more than doubling from a year ago to 4.0b reais and also above pre-pandemic levels. "A major third-quarter beat," Santander analysts said, highlighting a greater-than-expected Passenger Revenue per Available Seat Kilometer (PRASK) expansion in the quarter that drove the strong top-line performance. Gol also updated some of its full-year forecasts to reflect higher jet fuel prices, current ticket sale levels and this year's results so far, the company said. Santander dubbed the move a "minor 2022 guidance cut."<br/>