Q1 call
 

Delta Air Lines 1Q 2023 Earnings Webcast

April 13, 2023 10:00 AM ET

https://ir.delta.com/events-and-pres...t/default.aspx

787 order, new pilot bases, 330-800 order, a bunch of 321XLRs, age 67 announcement, and single pilot operations. That’s my prediction

Savings from Styrofoam cups?

A5S

I hope that someone asks about operational reliability. It’s still in Q1 and we’ve been cancelling 50+ (usually quite a bit more) mainline flights daily. Almost all due to pilot availability.

Greenies at the new pay rates aren’t enough, there are too many flights and not enough pilots.

Q2 and Q3 are going to be really ugly unless they start cutting flights now.

All that, but still nothing on 350-1000 rumor?

they have enough. Probably not in the correct base/seat as I sit and never get called🫢🫢

My bad, you are absolutely correct.

Don't forget the Orlando base announcement.

You heard wrong. It was MIA/FLL.

A new pilot base should be fantastic.

Funny. That savings alone ought to be worth an extra grand for everyone in bonus pay.

Id expect a base closure before a base opening at this point.

I’m fine with that if they close ATL.

If they close ATL, expect about 3000-5000 furloughs.

#worthit

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200% just isn’t really enough to get the junior B’s excited to go fly greenslips on 1st and 2nd year pay. And there are a TON of junior B’s on the domestic fleets that are hurting the most. The pilots coming up from the regionals just enjoyed several years of people throwing wads of cash at them to go fly airplanes. 300%, tiered pay, etc. Everyone’s grateful to be at mainline and no one would go back. But 200% just really isn’t all that enticing.

I hope Ed and his team get hammered with questions about our lack of operational success in Q1. They have stopped mentioning anything about being the industry operational leader. The silence is deafening.

They know. They purposely offered a bunch of flights they knew they couldn’t cover to grab revenue.

Sounds like thanksgiving 2021 all over again

thanksgiving 2021 was our last best heavy season operation as we didn’t cancel any flying. And they loved bragging about how well we did versus other airlines. Since then we haven’t had one good operation during a peak season.

I thought it was the , when was the big recent meltdown then? Am I thinking the following Easter? I could have swore it was thanksgiving. But it all runs together for me anymore.

Let’s see…there were the holiday meltdowns of 2020 and then the spring and summer of 2022. I can’t remember if t giving ‘22 was bad or not, but I know Xmas was. Only thing that “saved” us was being able to blame it on the wx. I might be missing some.

Ok, yeah, 2020, not 2021 is what I was thinking. When we had a giant pool of UNAs.

Christmas was bad, but luckily southwest had a meltdown of epic proportions which took the eyes off our huge meltdown :D

I thought Easter of ‘21 was a bad holiday because we had so many pilots getting vaccinated.

What to expect…
https://markets.businessinsider.com/...ect-1032226997

Q1 Loss of $363 millions, due to one time adjustment for pilot contract.

They blamed the pilots for $865 million cost, $735 million from the one-time payment and $130 million for funsies.

Delta also paid $695 million of debt early.

Q2 forecast is showing ~$2.00 EPS on ~15% margin which is pretty incredible.

…soooooo, they finally paid off $865M of debt to their pilots late then?

It’s actually called a profitable quarter, except for special items (pilot contract). 45% improvement on March Q1 2022. Pre-tax income of 217 million, improvement of 1.2 billion over last years March Q1. Paid down 1.2 billion in debt. Not a loss. A very good report. Forward looking is incredible. Very good results.

So what does that do to profit sharing?

$72M toward PS

With a very conservative forward P/E of ten and estimated earnings of $5 share, that puts the stock around $50, conservatively. I have given up on it dipping back into the twenties. I figure all the insider trading was the exec team cashing out stock awards to pay taxes. Could see $120 share on the next bull run.

My .02, DYODD

Buying the dip. The fact that it was mentioned to trim summer sched for reliability and record demand was the warrant. 45-48$/ share seems very realistic based on numbers by EOY.

I think fair value is between $50-$70. Likely will add a small position with 2 year LEAPS

No you won't. Delta's trading policy does not allow trading DAL with options.

Reiterated a 5-6 full year EPS, for reference 2022 was 3.20 EPS.
5-6 would be pretty great and if we hit 7+ as projected in 2024 and beyond that is even more great.

Nor does it permit holding shares of DAL in a margin account. There are lots of restrictions employees aren't aware of.

But are they looking? If you were shorting the stock and intending to do harm, I think that would be different than investing in an upswing. You are correct, the question is are they looking at calls? How much would it cost them to investigate this over 80,000 employees over how many possible brokerage firms out there?

You should try it and let us know.