Southwest said Thursday it expects its holiday meltdown to continue to weigh on its bottom line, but said it still expects to be profitable this year. The carrier reported a net loss of $220m for Q4 after the travel chaos drove up expenses and cost it millions in revenue during what was expected to be the busiest travel period since before the Covid pandemic. “Thus far in January 2023, the Company has experienced an increase in flight cancellations and a deceleration in bookings, primarily for January and February 2023 travel, which are assumed to be associated with the operational disruptions in December 2022,” Southwest said in a quarterly report. Analysts had been anticipating a per-share profit of 19 cents for the first quarter, based on estimates compiled by Refinitiv. The Dallas-based airline said booking trends look positive in March, however, and it forecast first-quarter revenue up 20% to 24% over last year with capacity rising 10%. It also estimated fuel and other costs would be higher than it previously estimated. Southwest’s Q4 loss compares with a $68m profit during the same period in 2021. Its record revenue of $6.17b was up more than 22% from a year earlier. Here’s how Southwest performed in Q4, compared with Wall Street expectations according to Refinitiv consensus estimates: * Adjusted loss per share: 38 cents vs an expected loss of 12 cents. * Total revenue: $6.17b vs an expected $6.16b. The airline said the mass cancellations hit its pretax results by $800m, in line with its estimate earlier this month of a hit between $725m and $825m. Southwest canceled around 16,700 flights from Dec. 21 though Dec. 31 after severe winter weather swept through the US.<br/>
unaligned
Southwest Airlines said it is testing software fixes that the company developed after its Christmas travel meltdown, as the airline faces multiple federal investigations. The software fixes are an “upgrade,” rather than a replacement of the crew scheduling system, Southwest executives said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. The airline and its employees have said the scheduling software left the company unable to recover from winter storms on some of the busiest travel days of the year and caused it to cancel more than 16,700 flights between December 21 and 29, roughly half its schedule during that period. The company decided to keep the underlying software system because it “generally worked as designed” even during the meltdown, CEO Bob Jordan said. The software’s shortcoming, he said, is “solving past problems.” The company is currently testing the software and expects to begin using it “in a few weeks’ time.” Southwest’s cancellations dwarfed other airlines during the Christmas storm because crew members had to call in to the airline, rather than notify the company electronically, to let them know of their availability. “That was a problem,” said Andrew Watterston, Southwest’s chief operating officer Thursday. “It wasn’t the problem for the situation. It was a symptom of the problem.”<br/>
JetBlue Airways Corp forecast full-year adjusted profit above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, aided by a strong rebound in travel demand even as economic worries mount. US carriers have been enjoying the strongest travel demand since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, boosted by reopening of closed borders, a strong US dollar and rising corporate travel. The New York-based carrier expects an adjusted profit of between 70c and $1.00 per share for 2023, compared with analysts' average estimate of 67 cents per share in Refinitiv IBES data. However, the company warned of a wider-than-expected loss in Q1 of the year, sending its shares down more than 1% in premarket trade, partly due to high fuel costs that have upset the cost base for the airline industry, pushing many carriers to increase ticket prices. JetBlue sees an adjusted loss in the range of 45 cents to 35 cents per share in the current quarter, compared with analysts' estimate of 4 cents per share. Excluding items, the company reported an adjusted profit of 22 cents per share for the quarter through December, versus analysts' average estimate of 20 cents per share. Its total operating revenue rose nearly 32% to $2.42b, slightly above analysts' estimate of $2.41b.<br/>
JetBlue Airways reported $2.4b worth of revenue during Q4 2022, its highest ever in a fourth quarter, which the New York-based carrier attributed in part to significant growth in its TrueBlue loyalty program. President and chief operating officer Joanna Geraghty said during JetBlue’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday that TrueBlue recorded a 50 percent year-over-year increase in program enrollment in 2022, representing the most successful year in its history. Geraghty added that TrueBlue also registered a 40 percent year-over-year increase in co-branded signups. “(The loyalty program) continues to not only exceed our expectations, but also hit new records,” said CEO Robin Hayes. JetBlue also projects another major boost from True Blue, having announced last month it would make major upgrades to the program for the first time in a decade. The company said it would expand its elite Mosaic programs and create a level of mileage accumulation named tiles enabling customers to obtain perks before reaching mosaic levels of flying. TrueBlue was far from the only major area of growth for JetBlue in 2022. Geraghty credited a surge in passengers from its Northeast Alliance with American Airlines as a reason for its strong fourth quarter.<br/>
Losses at low-cost airline Wizz Air narrowed over the winter as ticket prices rose and demand for travel remained strong despite the economic slowdown. The UK-listed airline on Thursday reported an operating loss of E155.5m for the final three months of 2022, down from E213.6m a year earlier. Wizz Air’s CE József Váradi said passengers were willing to pay higher prices for their seats, with average fares running above both last year and 2019. Revenue more than doubled compared with the previous year, from E408.4m to E911.7m, as the airline carried 12.4m passengers, up 60%. Shares in the company fell 7% to GBP28.12 by late morning on Thursday despite the upbeat news, reversing gains the previous day, which followed easyJet’s bullish forecasts for the rest of the year. Wizz Air’s costs also rose significantly in the quarter, as it pushed ahead with an ambitious expansion plan that has seen it grow out of its eastern European origins to emerge as a leading player in European aviation. Total operating costs in the most recent quarter rose 72% to E1.06b, as a higher fuel bill also added to operating expenses. Wizz Air said it expected to report a loss for its current financial year, which ends in March, but Varadi said he “remained confident” that the following year would be profitable. He said booking volumes were ahead of 2022 figures while pricing had been strong, adding to positive commentary from rivals including easyJet and Ryanair, which have both reported surging demand for travel despite the cost of living crisis. “We remain very upbeat. We see that demand is there and we are expecting a strong revenue and demand environment going into the summer,” said Varadi. He added that there had been no signs of a slowdown in consumer spending in any of the 54 countries Wizz flew to, and there was strong demand “across the board”. “It seems people might be prepared to sacrifice on other consumer items . . . other than travel,” he said.<br/>
Russia’s Aeroflot said on Thursday it carried 40.7m passengers in 2022, an 11% fall on its 2021 passenger numbers, as the United States and Europe banned Russian airlines from using their air space or airports. In 2019, before COVID-19 hit airlines around the world, Russia’s No. 1 airline group carried 60.7m passengers. Passenger numbers include those carried on Aeroflot’s subsidiaries, such as low-cost airline Pobeda. <br/>
Kuwait Airways' revenue last year rose by 115% from 2021 and was up 10% from pre-pandemic 2019, Chairman Ali Aldokhan told a news conference on Thursday. The state carrier posted a net loss of 55m dinars ($180.3m) for 2022 and still expects to break even by the end of 2024, Aldokhan said without disclosing a figure for 2021. Kuwait Airways posted a net loss of 107m dinars in 2019 The airline, like its counterparts across the globe, was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that the airline intends to operate new routes to Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest and the Saudi Arabian cities of Al-Ula, Taif and Al-Qassim in 2023.<br/>
Black boxes recovered from a fatal Nepal plane crash will be analysed in Singapore at the request of the investigation authorities in Nepal, said Singapore’s Transport Ministry in a statement on Thursday. Yeti Airlines flight 691 smashed into a gorge on its final approach to the newly opened Pokhara International Airport on Jan 15, killing all 72 people on board. It was the country’s worst air crash in 30 years. The Transport Ministry’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau will help to retrieve and read the data from the plane’s flight recorders, said an MOT spokesman. The analysis will be carried out at TSIB’s flight recorder readout facility, which was set up in 2007. “All investigation-related information, including the progress of investigations and the findings, will be handled by the Nepalese investigation authority,” said the spokesman. Flight recorders, or black boxes, capture information about a flight such as instrument warnings and audio recordings, and help in piecing together events leading up to an incident. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the Nepali investigation team will be leaving on Friday for Singapore with the flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder. Another report by The Kathmandu Post on Wednesday said the examination is expected to take a week, and will be free.<br/>
An airplane belonging to Jeju Air., South Korea's biggest low-cost carrier, returned to the airport that it had departed from in Hokkaido, Japan, due to an unusual noise from its engine. The Boeing 737-800 carrying 187 passengers and six crew members returned to New Chitose Airport at 2:45 p.m. after taking off at 1:06 p.m. Jeju Air said the Incheon-bound aircraft circled in the sky to spend fuel in order to meet the required landing weight at which a plane is permitted to land. The passengers were taken to hotels while a safety inspection was conducted, the company said, adding that a substitute plane will depart at noon on Friday.<br/>
AirAsia Aviation units were operating at less than half of pre-pandemic capacity – with total passenger volume also far from 2019 levels – despite seeing an “exceptional increase” in demand as international travel resumed in 2022. In full-year operational results, AirAsia Aviation parent Capital A says the airline units in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines were operating at around 47% capacity compared to pre-pandemic 2019. This is even as the aviation group saw a four-fold rise in capacity year on year, as it returned to service more aircraft from storage. The group hopes to return its full fleet of over 200 jets by mid-2023. The four AirAsia carriers flew more than 34m passengers in 2022, also a four-fold increase compared to 2021. However, the figure is only 46% that of 2019 volumes, notes Capital A. Much of the boost came from full border reopening in most of AirAsia’s key markets in Asia. Capital A adds that the aviation units were recovering passenger volumes faster than capacity, especially in the last quarter of the year. “The aviation segment remains firmly on a strong recovery path post-pandemic transition with added impetus from rapid resumption of international travel. Benchmarked against the corresponding pre-Covid performance in [fourth quarter of 2019], Capital A’s consolidated airlines had recovered passenger volume faster than capacity restoration in [fourth quarter of 2022],” states Capital A. <br/>