Shares of Delta Air Lines Inc. surged toward a more-than two-year high Thursday, after the air carrier reported record second-quarter profitability and sales and boosted its full-year outlook, citing continued “robust” travel demand.
Delta DAL, -1.46% said net income more than doubled to $ 1.83 billion, or $ 2.84 a share, from $ 735 million, or $ 1.15 a share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share of $ 2.68 beat the FactSet consensus of $ 2.40.
Revenue grew 12.7% to $ 15.58 billion, well above the FactSet consensus of $ 14.95 billion.
Traffic increased 18.0% to 60.80 billion revenue passenger miles while capacity grew 17.1% to 68.99 billion available seat miles. Load factor improved one percentage point to 88%, beating the FactSet consensus of 87.2%.
The stock jumped 3.9% in premarket trading, putting it on track to open at the highest price seen during regular-session hours since April 2021.
“Consumer demand for air travel remains robust,” said Chief Executive Ed Bastian. And Delta President Glen Hauenstein said that robust demand has continued into the current quarter.
As a result, Delta said it expects third-quarter total revenue to be “similar” to the second quarter, up 11% to 14% from a year ago. The current FactSet consensus of $ 14.89 billion implies 6.5% growth.
Helping fuel Delta’s upbeat outlook for the September quarter, the company said non-fuel unit costs are expected to decline 1% to 3% from a year ago.
“Non-fuel unit costs have reached an important inflection point with our rebuild substantially behind us, core maintenance normalizing and the benefits of scale and efficiency increasing into the second half,” said Chief Financial Officer Dan Janki.
For 2023, the company raised its EPS guidance range to $ 6 to $ 7 from $ 5 to $ 6, and increased its outlook for free cash flow to $ 3 billion from $ 2 billion.
The stock has run up 42.1% over the past three months through Wednesday, while the U.S. Global Jets exchange-traded fund JETS, -0.81% has climbed 22.1% and the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.74% has gained 9.3%.