Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Savi Syth: Got it. And if I might just ask on the Latin entity, Glen, just could you provide a little bit more color on what you’re seeing, especially broken out between kind of near international, which recovered first in kind of the South America markets?

Glen Hauenstein : Yes. Of course, we’ve been really thrilled with the results with LATAM and the improvements in our South America revenue base. So South America is moving at a great clip. And again, the short and medium haul, Latin America markets were some of the first to recover, and they’re still continuing to be strong, but not posting those great — giant gains they did in the early part of the recovery.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth : On your TransAtlantic JV, I just wondered if there’s any new approaches, maybe any learnings through the pandemic that will change the way you operate going forward versus maybe what you’ve done in the past? How much each side flies, things like that?

Glen Hauenstein : We have a great TransAtlantic joint venture. It was the first one and the most integrated and one that we think has huge customer benefits. And it’s always evolving. And that’s the great — and we have great partners that want it to evolve. So we’re continuing evaluating how we approach the marketplace together. You’ve seen some swaps in the fall from things that we have flown to the things that our partners are now going to fly. And so I don’t think there are any huge headline changes, but it’s always evolving.

Duane Pfennigwerth : Okay. And then maybe just for my follow-up on seasonally shaping capacity. It looks like nominally ASMs peak in July. They stepped down a little bit in August and they stepped down a little bit again in September, which seems to make some sense. Not all your peers are kind of taking that approach. In some cases, August is bigger than July, et cetera. So is this just getting back to kind of your view on normal seasonality? Or is this more operationally driven?

Glen Hauenstein : No, absolutely. It’s more normal seasonality. Of course, in the South, you have the schools going back earlier and earlier. This year, for example, schools go back in Georgia, the 1st of August. And so we’re through the summer travel period in the South where the North tends to go back after Labor Day. So if you look more granularly, you’d see the Southern, the Atlanta hub and the South trends down in the second half of August, and we keep the Northern tier operating a little bit longer and then pull that down after Labor Day. So we are actually getting much more back to where we want to be as we say we come out of restoration to a much more normal seasonality.

Julie Stewart : We’ll now go to our final analyst question.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Brandon Oglenski from Barclays.

Brandon Oglenski : Glen, so I guess — and I know we’re not guiding to 4Q here, but implied revenue in 4Q maybe feels a little bit softer from 3Q for the full year, just given your full year guidance, sorry. Is that conservatism around the off-peak periods like we were talking about back in 1Q with booking trends that have just changed and cancel fees that — or the lack of cancel fees that have changed consumer behavior?

Glen Hauenstein : I just think we know the least about 4Q right now. And so as we get towards the end of this quarter, I think we’ll have a much better view that we could share with you on the October call.

Brandon Oglenski : Okay. I appreciate that. But I guess can you talk maybe structurally, how are you approaching the off-peak period differently than earlier this year?