Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Shane Tackett: Thanks, Chris. Yes, and that comment is ex freighter cost. But you’ll be able to see the year-over-year, I don’t think it’s going to be materially different even if you included freighter costs in both years. Yes, we had a fleet of 3, which is a small fleet. They do a lot of work for us up in the State of Alaska. It’s really important to our customers up there. It’s something we are proud of being able to do. We’ve been the predominant cargo carrier in the State of Alaska for most of our history. We are moving to 5 dedicated freighters. Again, most all of that lift will be in the State of Alaska. And who knows over time, if we will be able to continue to increment from that base of 5. We would certainly like to if, the business remains strong.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos: Okay. And just my follow-up, Ben, I think you said in your prepared remarks that you’re anticipating a better supply-demand balance in the core markets in the second half. And so we’ve had a competitor retreat from parts of L.A. It doesn’t look like they’re coming back. Outside of this, I’m curious how confident are you in this supply backdrop or this sort of new dynamic, if you will, going forward. Thank you.

Ben Minicucci: Hey, Dan, well, okay. I think if you look at how Q1 turned out for us and again, it was just an amazing quarter from what it was in Q1 of 2023. So we are just looking at just the higher water level [indiscernible] starting from in Q1, and that’s translating forward into Q2. Just based on everything we are seeing in terms of demand and Andrew touched on a lot of those things, we just feel like we are well-positioned. So that’s why we are forecasting double-digit pre-tax margins. And so we are feeling really strong. It’s our most profitable quarter. And so I think we are really set up well for Q2 and the rest of the year.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos: Okay. Thank you.

Ben Minicucci: Thank you so much, Chris, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. You guys have a great day, and we will see — we will talk to you guys next quarter.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for attending.