Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Didora: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Ed, a couple of questions just kind of want to bring it back to some things discussed at Investor Day. I guess maybe first just on capacity growth. I know you gave us a little color about how you’re thinking about 1Q, kind of domestic versus international. But the mid-single digit growth that you talked about in 2024, I guess, in this fuel environment, would you consider that growth rate as reasonable or aspirational at this point in time?

Ed Bastian: Well, it’s probably more a question for Glen than myself. But at my level, as I just said in my last comments, I hear — my sense would be any capacity that you hear from us in terms of plans or the industry, you should read as somewhat aspirational, because there still are tremendous constraints in the marketplace in terms of delivering that growth. If all goes well and we get all the parts and we get the planes on time and we have the labor ready and ATC is not an issue and fuel prices stay reasonable, yeah, that’s what’s going to happen. But if you look over the last two to three years, we continue to evolve it. So those are just points-in-time estimates as to what we could do. As to what we actually will be able to do, I think we’ll probably, across the board, be a little less than that.

Glen Hauenstein: And I would just add a comment. About half of that is run rate of what’s in there as we enter the first quarter of next year. So, the real number is half of low-single digits, which is very low-single digits.

Andrew Didora: Yeah. Got it. Makes sense. And then I guess, Dan, just on costs and CASM next year. Obviously, with capacity moving around, obviously, the maintenance costs continuing into next year, can you just give us a sense of your level of confidence in 2024 CASM-Ex being able to be down kind of low-single digits, or should we think about that differently as well? Thank you.

Dan Janki: As I mentioned earlier, we’re still in the middle of our planning process. So, all these pieces are coming together, right, capacity, along with all the things that we’ve talked about. Regarding the maintenance, we’re spending certainly a lot more time on that, given all the moving pieces in the industry and elements that we talked about.

Ed Bastian: Yeah, Dan’s comments earlier about — this is going to be a pivot to optimization is a big deal and maintenance is a part of that. Maintenance unlocks the ability to drive the efficiencies across the enterprise. And we’re right in the middle of the planning process. So, we’re not trying to dodge the question. We will give you at the typical time at the start of the year what we think we can do.

Andrew Didora: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Catherine O’Brien from Goldman Sachs. Your line is live.

Catherine O’Brien: Good morning everyone. Thanks for the time. Ed, on CNBC this morning you called out a pick-up in corporate bookings. Could we just dig into that a little bit more? What have you seen since Labor Day on volumes or revenue from corporate? Any industries or regions that are bigger drivers or it’s really across the board? And anything on maybe just corporate booking windows today versus maybe a couple of months ago, and they’re still longer than pre-COVID? Appreciate it.

Ed Bastian: Well, we said on the last call that we anticipated post-Labor Day that we’d see volumes of corporate travel pick up. And indeed, we’re seeing that. I think Glen mentioned a couple of sectors, the tech sector and the financial services sector is areas that we’re seeing double-digit growth. We have, I’d say, across the board we’re seeing increases. The corporate travel has come back, it comes back and then plateaus, comes back and plateaus. And I think you’ll see another wave of return. I think a lot of it’s being driven by the return to office and getting into the new normal work patterns, which many companies are still sorting out for themselves. But it’s healthy to see, and it’s one of the distinguishing factors between us and some of the carriers that are on the other end of the fare spectrum. So, one of the many differentiating factors that is enabling us to grow revenue at the pace we are.

Catherine O’Brien: Makes a lot of sense. Thanks so much. And then one, maybe this is for Dan. Can you just speak to how the air traffic liability is trending year-to-date and into the fourth quarter versus your expectations at the start of the year? I know we kicked off the year with really strong first quarter performance on that ETL build. Should you be aware of any impact from normalization of booking windows versus last year, just given the pick-up in corporate volume you’re seeing? Thanks a lot.

Dan Janki: No, I’d say it’s performing as we expected. We’re starting to maybe get back to a little bit more of the traditional seasonality. As we were restoring, it was a little bit different. And if you look at historical patterns, you’re only down mid-teens as you go through into the fourth quarter. And that’s kind of what we saw as we wrapped up the third quarter here. And so, no. The other element that you have in there is you certainly have — we’ve had very friendly policies as it relates to credits and customers have gotten really used to using them. And we think that’s obviously long-term beneficial that people have confidence to book and travel, but also consume when they don’t travel. And those we’ve seen very consistent issuance and usage rates on them.

Catherine O’Brien: Great. Thank you so much.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Mike Linenberg from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live.

Mike Linenberg: Oh, yeah. Hey, good morning everyone. Glen, you called out a couple of sectors that were underperforming from a corporate perspective. I mean, I think of any carrier probably the most indexed to the automotive sector and then sort of the media sector with the writers’ and actors’ strike. What sort of drag do you actually think that had on your corporates, at least in the month of September and maybe what you’re seeing right now?

Glen Hauenstein: Well, clearly, I’ll start with Los Angeles and the entertainment production strikes that are ongoing. That has had a not insignificant change in the business travel to and from Los Angeles, as well as now the UAW strike, which has curtailed a significant amount of the business in Detroit. As you pointed out, we’re very big in both of those sectors. And what I’m really encouraged about is despite those two kind of being things that we should look forward to as positives next year, that our total corporate revenues are still accelerating. So despite those two being a drag on them, and I think hopefully, those are both resolves fairly quickly here and we can get back to a normal business level. But you are right, spot on, that we are probably the most impacted by those two sectors.