Originally Posted by
deltabound
I'm not arguing here. I'm confused. And I am heavily biased towards any news that puts DAL in a good light.
However, I just don't understand why every release on various stock boards (google, yahoo, etc.) are reporting that the 3rd quarter earnings report made by Delta equates to a $130-$160 million dollar loss for the quarter. A loss that is far, far greater than what DAL lost during the 3rd quarter of last year.
DAL, however, on the company web page, is trumpeting their 3rd quarter report as a $50 million dollar profit.
Obviously, both can't be true. Please explain what I'm missing here.
I'm perfectly aware that DAL's cash position has increased. That doesn't mean it's from profits, however. DAL's cash position generally refers to liquidity, which is mainly immediate access to cash, borrowed or otherwise. Having access to borrowed cash is good, but it's certainly not profit.
One area I think you are getting confused with is operating profit vs a loss in conjunction with write offs. Guys have alluded to this in posts above. The special charges you keep hearing about are a smart way to reduce tax liability and the Delta tax guys take as many write offs as possible. Now don't be confusing write offs as being actual cash losses. Ideally we wouldn't have any special charges (ie early retirement payoffs, early termination of contracts, etc) and just have huge net profits. Although that does not exist right now the silver lining is that if Delta were to quit taking write downs for tax reasons we would be showing a slight net profit.
One other thing that has skewed the numbers for a while is the merger with NWA. Numbers from one year to the next are not apples to apples comparisons as you integrate large volumes of another carrier. 2010 to 2011 will finally get the company to a point where you can compare year to year to see how things are really progressing.
The biggest thing as pilots that we want is to be profitable (net profit even with any write downs) like for example one billion per year 2011 to 2012 since the new contract for pay etc will be due then and it will be easier to get "restoration" to contract 2000 plus (ie a 777 Captain makes $330 per hour and a 757 FO makes $180 per hour) if the numbers are crunching really well. This also opens up more growth, moving up the latter and hiring guys like you if you are still gunning for Delta by then. Clear as mud?