Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Dan Janki: It will — part of it is tied to the cost progression and as you see that progression being up, and I said to you get about a 10-point improvement in cost from beginning to end, that will drive your expansion of margins throughout the year as you progress, along with what then Glen talked about, which was the commercial rebuild related to the core. So you will see this progression. Certainly, year-over-year, the improvement versus the comp that we are coming off drives some material improvement here in the first quarter over $1 billion pre-tax, a big part of the step-up in earnings year-over-year, but you will also see improvement as we go through the year.

Sheila Kahyaoglu: That’s helpful. And then just maybe one follow-up related to that, just margin progression. I think, Ed, you mentioned high margin Pacific routes opening up, I think, it was Australia and Korea, what are one time to two items we should watch for as we see that international recovery help margin momentum?

Ed Bastian: Our international recovery is well underway, and if you think about Europe, we will actually be bigger in the transatlantic this year than we were in 2019 by about 8 points in terms of seats. Early advanced bookings for that are incredibly strong, so we are very pleased with how that’s developing. And so what’s really left to reopen is China and that’s — we are not going to get ahead of ourselves in terms of capacity to China. We are going to be very mindful to see how demand warrants and how this opens up, but that’s the big question mark, I think, in terms of international demand for 2023 that we don’t know yet. I think the others we are very confident that we have a good path forward that will get us back to 2019 or bigger at better margins.

Dan Janki: And I think as we talked about at Investor Day, the multiyear progression on international, the structural elements here, right? The next-generation fleet that we are at, the reconfiguration of more premium seats with DPS, better cargo capability stronger partner network, all those are systematic drivers not only in this year but really on a multiyear basis.

Ed Bastian: And if you go back in our history, not to go into too much detail, but we had a multiyear restructure of our Asia capacity and that has been a drag on earnings for many years leading up to the pandemic. And now as we come out of that, we feel like our restructuring is really done in earnest and so we should see really good improvements in Pacific profitability moving forward.

Sheila Kahyaoglu: Great. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Jamie Baker from JPMorgan. Your line is live.

Jamie Baker: Hey. Good morning, everybody. And Glen, it’s been a while since we visited the topic of domestic and international RASM premiums. We know what those metrics were pre-COVID, there’s obviously been quite a bit of international upheaval since then, a bit of domestic change, and of course, the premium market at least is stronger than what I was anticipating in 2019. How should we think about the magnitude of Delta’s RASM premiums going forward and any related timing?

Glen Hauenstein: Yeah. I think right now we are sitting probably at a low point relative to the industry given our stage length and the way we rebuilt the airline and I would expect to gain a couple 2 points to 3 points domestically back as we get towards the back half of the year on how we rebuild the airline. So that’s how I view it. I am pleased with — at a macro level or at an individual flight level, I am pleased with where we are. When you add it all up, sum total looks like we are taking a step backwards, but I think, it’s really the way we have done it rather than a structural look away from Delta or anything that we are losing customers. So I think we are in a good spot for that.

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