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

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Ed Bastian: Thank you.

Glen Hauenstein: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Andrew Didora from Bank of America. Your line is live.

Andrew Didora: Hi. Good morning, everyone. First question for Glen, I guess, based on my math, it seems like you are assuming PRASM could start to decline sort of in the high-single digits year-over-year as you move through 2023 to kind of get to your 15% to 20% revenue outlook. What drives that assumption particularly given kind of the RASM benefit you should have from your mid-continent growth strategy?

Glen Hauenstein: I think when we look at the progression through the quarter we had some very extenuating circumstances last second quarter and early third quarter with fuel running up over $120 a barrel. And as we think about how we do fuel recapture on the way up, we also as inflation cools down and as fuel comes down, we are not going to keep all of that. We are going to keep as much of it as we can and we are not anticipating that big mobile and fuel, which is driving the sequential decrease. So we will see how it actually rolls out and hopefully it’s better than that, but that’s how we are thinking about how the year progresses in terms of absolute unit revenues.

Andrew Didora: Yeah. That makes sense. And then I just ask you kind of strategically here, Glen. As you see — as you have seen the revenue environment continue to show this strength pretty much since kind of almost a year ago, are you seeing any changes in behavior from any of your competitors that may show that they are acting differently today than they would have pre-pandemic? Thank you.

Glen Hauenstein: Yeah. We don’t really talk about how our competitors behave. I think what we have seen is we have seen a very big shift in how and why people travel and trying to stay ahead of that in our own planning and make sure that we are capturing where people want to go and what products they want to buy and that’s really our continued focus and it’s been a very interesting journey.

Andrew Didora: Yeah.

Glen Hauenstein: And as you look at individual market levels, we are very different sizes than we were pre-pandemic based on where our customers want us to take in these days.

Andrew Didora: Great. Thank you.

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

Mike Linenberg: Oh! Hey. Good morning, everyone. Hey, Glen, just a quick question sort of following up on Conor’s on loyalty. It feels like with the free WiFi, this is going to be a banner year for SkyMiles, I think, last year $8.5 million. How do we think about the conversion of number of SkyMiles to ultimately those who take — uptake on the credit card, I think this last year, it was like an 8:1 ratio. Is that kind of what it’s been historically?

Glen Hauenstein: Yeah. I think that’s about right. That’s one of the — we see the more engaged the customers with Delta, the higher their satisfaction is and so that’s really part of that ecosystem that we are really trying to grow is, SkyMiles is an entry point, of course, as everybody knows it’s free and now they have an incentive to do that, because there’s an immediate benefit to join because you get the free WiFi and so how do we translate that ultimately into more loyal customers who eventually will wind up getting some of our other products and that’s really what our flywheel is right now and how we are going to continue to press forward in terms of loyalty.

Mike Linenberg: Great. Very good. And then just second question on Dan, you talked about non-ops, the $470 million headwind, obviously, non-cash pension expense maybe there’s some other items. How do we think about through the year, is that ratably, is it lumpy and what tax rate should we be using on March quarter full year? Thank you.

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