Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) Stops Flights to Israel, Comes Up with Better than Expected Quarterly Results

Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) came up with its second quarter results today. The Company reported a profit of $801 million, or $0.94 per share, up from $685 million or $0.80 per share, a year earlier. The Company has also stopped operating flights to and from Israel.

 “The outlook is bright while the economy should be growing at 3 to 4%, when you think about the recovery in the United States after the kind of recession we have had. We still have strong corporate profits and unemployment numbers continue to improve so our outlook is robust. We have a very strong second quarter, our third quarter will be even better and we expect for the full year that we’ll top $4 billion in pre-tax profit,” Richard Anderson, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) said, while speaking on CNBC.

When asked about the load-factor on an average Delta Flight, Mr. Anderson replied that they are running at about 87%, which is a rise of 1.5% on the year.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a statement yesterday, prohibiting all U.S. Airlines to fly to Israel. Protesting this move, the former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg flew to Israel yesterday on the Israeli airline El Al. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) also made one of its flight change course midway yesterday, to make it land in Paris instead of Tel Aviv.

Answering questions related to these events, Mr. Anderson said: “Well, I can’t speak to you that the FAA or Mayor Bloomberg, we made our decision wholly independent of both of them […] yesterday morning early, well before the FAA made any pronouncements at all because we have a much higher duty of care and we have got to make the right decision for the flight attendants, customers and pilots on our flights. So, we routinely at Delta establish what we call Delta no-fly zones. So today, for instance, we are not flying to Israel. We will not allow our flights to be dispatched over Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan or North Korea.”

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