Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Glen Hauenstein: I think we’re going to — first of all, thanks to our operating teams who have given us such exceptional completion factors that accounted for even higher than we had planned for. So, I’d say if those continue, which I imagine they will or hope they will, that we would be at the high of the 3% to 5%. And I think it’s a bit early to say, but I think that we will be right at that 5% depending on how the completion factor comes in.

Andrew Didora: That’s helpful. Thank you. And then, I think in your prepared remarks, you spoke to MRO — MRO headwinds in the ancillary revenue line in the quarter. What is driving that? I just would have thought, given everyone’s elevated maintenance expense, it would have been a little bit more of a tailwind. Any thoughts there? Thank you.

Dan Janki: Yes. I’d say two things. One is, as it relates to our third-party activity, it’s just — we’re always — we’re constrained by what the industry is constrained by, which is material and ability to generate that output. And as we’ve talked about, our Tech Ops team, John, and the team are focused on the Delta fleet. So — but I would say the constraint continues to be immaterial and turnaround times associated with it.

Andrew Didora: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Jamie Baker from J.P. Morgan. Your line is live.

Jamie Baker: Thanks. Good morning, everybody. A couple for Glen. First on the topic of RASM premiums. Pre-COVID, you were running about a 20% domestic premium to the industry and I think you were roughly flat on international. You and I spoke on one of the earnings calls as to what that — what the path to achieving an international RASM premium might look like. Can we revisit that topic? Where is Delta currently both domestic and international? And where do you see that heading from here in a post-COVID world?

Glen Hauenstein: Well, thanks for the question, Jamie. I think right now, we believe we are running international RASM premiums that are primarily been driven by higher load factors on the fleet. But as the fleet continues to evolve and we continue to put more premium seats in the mix, we believe that is one of the key drivers for us to continue to accelerate our relative performance to our industry peers. So, I think we’re on a journey there and I think we are now generating premiums consistently and hopefully, we can accelerate those over the next several years as we execute on our plans to differentiate Delta.

Jamie Baker: And as a follow-up, Glen, on premium, so premium revenue was up 10% in the quarter, main cabin was up 4%. What can you tell us about the constitution of that 4%? For example, what’s the trend with basic economy, what percent of main cabin passengers are SkyMiles members compared to the premium cabins, that sort of thing? I’m just trying to understand where the 4% is coming from. Are those new customers? Are you taking share from discounters, that sort of thing? Thanks.

Glen Hauenstein: I think in the quarter, we ran a record domestic load factor in the first quarter. So, what I believe drove that was the incremental traffic that we took over historical levels. So, pretty excited about doing that in the first quarter, as you know, the first quarter is the most challenging in terms of loads. And for us to come through that quarter with the premiums that we took, I think really is a testament to the strength of our brand. And of course, as we get through the year, there’ll be less and less discounted seats available as you get towards peak, but generally, we’re most open in 1Q. Yes.

Jamie Baker: Okay. Very helpful. Thank you, everyone.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brandon Oglenski from Barclays. Your line is live.

Brandon Oglenski: Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking the question. So, Glen, I guess I wanted to come back to domestic growth this summer because it looks like you’re jumping up to 6% or 7% from about 2% in the first quarter. And the context around this, I think investors were a little bit concerned that, that growth could lead to lower RASMs, but obviously, you’re guiding to flat. So, can you dig a little bit deeper on your domestic network priorities and maybe a little bit more on regional expansion?

Glen Hauenstein: Right. I think there — what we’ve said in the past and I would like to go back to is, we kind of coming out of COVID, we had to allocate the resources that had — we had available. And those resources went to our once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to take leading positions in places like Boston and Los Angeles at the expense of rebuilding our core hubs and we’re still not done building our core hubs. And so, our ability now to go back and to put seats back into our core where our cost structure is most advantaged and where our profitability is highest is where we’re focused for the rest of this year.

Dan Janki: And seat growth is about a point below, some growth that they see. Yes.

Brandon Oglenski: Okay. Appreciate that. And then Glen, on the Latin differentiation, I think you were talking separately about short-haul and long-haul. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us?

Glen Hauenstein: Well, we are really pleased with our South America performance. As I said in the prepared remarks, our capacity is up in the 30% to 40% range and we’re doing that with minimal degradation of our unit revenue. So we’re really off to a great start with LATAM and I think we have a really great future of working with them to continue to evolve as the leading carrier between the United States and South America in our joint venture. So, put that aside and then say the — particularly, leisure destinations, there was an oversupply in the first quarter. I think in first quarter of ’23, the industry saw historically higher returns. And so when there are historically high returns, everybody wants to do more of it. We did considerably more of it.