The real story on SWA fuel hedges
I think this is a more accurate portrayal of how the fuel hedges work. Read it carefully. This was written by one of our captain's with a very extensive knowledge of airline finance.
....Let's look at the concept “this airline is doing fairly well, but without fuel hedging we would be ‘losing’ money.” In the following I am not disputing the fuel hedging program has been awesome here at SWA, just that how you have been presented the information is in error. Income statements subtract revenues from expenses to get operating income. From operating income other adjustments are made to yield “income before taxes.” As an aside, at SWA these other expenses actually add $54M to income mainly because of our large cash hoard.3 The income-before-taxes figure is reduced by taxes to achieve net income. The rub is that in the “Just Plane Smart” presentations, management compared net income to an expense called fuel hedging gains. Then the presentation inferred to subtract one from the other. Roughly, $500M - $500M = $0, correct? Well, not at all. If fuel costs were higher in the operating expenses by $500M then the operating income is reduced by $500M making the tax burden less by around $200M. Therefore, if the fuel hedges were not present, the accounting effect is not: 5 – 5 = 0, but 5 – 5 (times the effective tax rate of around 40 percentish) = 3. “Just Plane Smart” then infers with “$0” in net income, we cannot continue to expand and hire. We don’t have any money correct? $0 is $0, right? This airline is refocused and running down the rails at a high rate of speed. In 2005, SWA produced a net income of $548M.4 Think for a second: How in the world did this airline purchase $1.2B in property and equipment in 2005 with only $584M on hand? Specifically, buy 33 aircraft, purchase gates, other capital equipment, plus retire debt, repurchase SWA common stock, and add a load of cash to our fabulous CFO Laura Wright’s petty cash account? It seems the math here is $584M minus (a ton of money) = a ton more money? What in the world? Remember the reality the airline industry requires a high degree of operating leverage discussed earlier? Those expensive assets get to be written off over the life of the asset. For example, a $20 million aircraft that lasts 20 years is allowed $1M of depreciation per year. SWA still possesses this $1M in cash, it just gets to lower its income similarly to the various write-offs we put on our IRS Form 1040. Last year SWA produced a little over $2.36B in cash flow from operations.5 In the airline business, cash is king. Remember in the recent past reading in the Wall Street Journal or the fish-wrapper (USA Today) that some of the mainline folks were burning cash at a rate of $3, $4, or even $5 million per day? How does our little LUV-jet Company producing cash at a rate of $6.5 million per day sound? Like the place to work is how it sounds! This is why our SWA Executive team was given the stupendous bonuses and raises for 2005 they recently received…because they rock! |
Ok, lets take your new argument and still show you why Southwest would not be making money without fuel hedges.
Quarter 4, 2005: Southwest's Operating Income: $82 million dollars Gains from fuel hedges: $258 million dollars Subtract__________________________________________ _ -$176 million dollars Now do you truly believe that Southwest was charged an additional $176 million in taxes on $82 million dollar income, that is over 200%!! Imagine being charged 200% for taxes. Most people are ****ed at 20%. Your argument has a slight validity, and it adds up to a few million bucks. But not $176 million!!!
Originally Posted by Sr. Barco
In the airline business, cash is king.
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United? What a joke. How much money have they made lately? Look how much cash the U.S. government has on hand yet they're in big debt. What is united's debt load? Look at their terrible pay and benefits yet they still can't turn a profit. Sorry man, bad example. I'm not beating the SWA drum but come on, United? I don't care how much cash they have on hand, they're not using it to make money. :eek:
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arrogance
This is the same arrogance I saw from several bankrupt airlines...one thing is inevitable: eventually SWA will have problems...maybe 10-20 years from now...but they will.
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Originally Posted by ryane946
Ok, lets take your new argument and still show you why Southwest would not be making money without fuel hedges.
Quarter 4, 2005: Southwest's Operating Income: $82 million dollars Gains from fuel hedges: $258 million dollars Subtract__________________________________________ _ -$176 million dollars Now do you truly believe that Southwest was charged an additional $176 million in taxes on $82 million dollar income, that is over 200%!! Imagine being charged 200% for taxes. Most people are ****ed at 20%. Your argument has a slight validity, and it adds up to a few million bucks. But not $176 million!!! Haha. Do you know which airline has the highest cash balance? I will give you a hint. It is a legacy carrier, that starts with a U, and has a big hub in Chicago. Ah, what the heck, its United (At over $4 billion cash on hand). Nice try. |
Originally Posted by ryane946
Haha. Do you know which airline has the highest cash balance? I will give you a hint. It is a legacy carrier, that starts with a U, and has a big hub in Chicago. Ah, what the heck, its United (At over $4 billion cash on hand). Nice try. Performance Update Costs: Unit cost forecasts are attached. Revenue: Second quarter mainline unit revenue is expected to increase between 11.1% and 12.1% year over year. Second quarter consolidated unit revenue is expected to increase between 12.0% and 13.0% year over year. Liquidity: We expect to end the second quarter with a cash and short-term investment balance over $5.5 billion, including approximately $500 million in restricted cash and short-term investments. Kenji Hashimoto Managing Director, Investor Relations |
AA has 20 BILLION in debt. That's 1 BILLION in debt service per year. When is the last time they made 1 BILLION in a year?
PS i got this info from http://www.businessweek.com/investor...612_815502.htm and he makes the above sound like it's all good news... so you don't have to read all the fluff... "HEAVY DEBT. On the negative side, we're concerned that the board can change the number of authorized shares without shareholder approval, and that the board may amend the corporate bylaws without shareholder approval. There are risks to our recommendation and target price. We consider the shares to be very volatile and high risk for several reasons. First, oil prices have risen dramatically and may continue to rise, which is offsetting a lot of other cost cuts at the company. In addition, AMR has a very high debt load of about $20 billion (including operating leases) and an underfunded pension plan, both of which are likely to be a drain on cash resources over the next few years. The net pension obligation at the end of 2005 exceeded the fair value of the assets in the plan by about $3.2 billion. AMR is attempting to get its debt level down, but this won't be an easy task, in our opinion. " |
20 billion? AA needs to go away. How many flights per day is that for other carriers? How many people would get pis sed at the airlines? Maybe people, travellers up to management, will see the light and fix sht.
I just don't see how you can get 20 billion dollars in debt unless you are a national government |
Originally Posted by Brav989
I just don't see how you can get 20 billion dollars in debt unless you are a national government |
Ha. But really..is there any real solution to this? To get the airlines back to making money, hiring pilots and expanding?
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