Delta Releases Q2 Earnings, Announces New Partner
Delta Air Lines ended June with a $2.3 billion profit on $16.7 billion gross revenue for the year’s second quarter, earning just a hair over $2 per share for its shareholders.
Delta ran an operating margin of 15% for the quarter and closed out the year’s first half with $640 million socked away for next year’s profit sharing for staff. Employees will have the option of taking the cash or the equivalent poundage in Biscoffs, and must declare their choice by the end of the year. The $16.7 billion revenue figure was a 5.4% jump from Q2 last year, despite a 2.6% drop in TRASM YoY.
It also signed an agreement with Riyadh Air — an airline that doesn’t fly anywhere yet — to serve as the new carrier’s exclusive partner in North America with an expectation to begin service to Riyadh from a yet-to-be-disclosed gateaway (likely one that rhymes with Platlanta) next year.
The carrier operated 39 days during the quarter without canceling a flight, but still managed to cancel your weekend getaway flight despite the weather seemingly being fine both at home and your destination. It ended the quarter with 15,585 units of blood collected at 373 staff blood drives and $2.5 billion of cash on hand — if it were willing to swap the blood for cash, that figure would rise closer to $3 billion.
Alaska’s Winter Just Got More Fun
Alaska Airlines added 18 new routes and one first-time destination earlier this week to a combination of sun-splashed winter getaways, fun ski destinations, and Tucson. Of the 18, Alaska confirmed some of these routes are in partnership with Apple Leisure Vacation Group, presumably because Banana Leisure Vacation Group wouldn’t return anyone’s calls.
The new destination is Vail, which will see AS flights for the first time with 3x weekly service from both San Diego and Seattle. The other ski-focused additions include Reno (with service from San Diego), Kelowna, BC (Los Angeles), and Bozeman (Boise). For those who prefer warmth, Alaska is adding year-round flights between Boise and Orange County, and seasonal service from both Boise and Sacramento to Orlando.
San Francisco and Seattle both gain service to Liberia, Costa Rica — the SEA addition will make it the 104th exciting non-stop destination for Alaska out of its SEA hub… well, 103 plus Newark. The carrier will also grow south of the border in Mexico, with daily flights between Fresno and Guadalajara, 5x weekly between Sacramento and Los Cabos, and Puerto Vallarta to SMF and JFK. PVR also adds the Missouri two-step of St. Louis and Kansas City, while MCI also sees new 1x weekly service to Cancún.
Lastly, it added a daily, seasonal flight between Sacramento and Tucson for anyone who might lose a bet and need to fly between those two cities.
The Battle for DCA’s New Slots is Hot
The submissions for the five new slots beyond Washington/National’s perimeter are in, and the list is about what was expected. There are four slots available for non-limited incumbents, and one slot for limited incumbents. Spirit submitted its request for fly to San Jose and Frontier picked San Juan despite both being told by the FAA they didn’t count as limited incumbents and aren’t eligible. The airlines do not agree, and went ahead and sent their requests in because who doesn’t love tilting at windmills?
The complete list is as follows:
- American: San Antonio
- Alaska: San Diego
- Delta: Seattle (alternate: Salt Lake City)
- Frontier: San Juan
- JetBlue: San Juan (alternate: Los Angeles)
- Spirit: San Jose
- Southwest: Las Vegas continuing to Sacramento
- United: San Francisco (alternate: Los Angeles)
Breeze noted to the DOT that if it were eligible for the process, it would have “satisfied the selection criteria better than any other airline,” which doesn’t sound very…nice.
Southwest Airlines: It Just Means More
Southwest Airlines was named the official airline of the Southeastern Conference this week, coming as the league expands further into Southwest territory with the addition of the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma this fall.
As part of the partnership, the conference is adding additional flights to several key football games this fall including LSU vs. USC in Las Vegas, Alabama at Wisconsin, Tennessee at Oklahoma, and Georgia at Texas. Southwest will also have on-site activations at the SEC Fanfare at the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, news that will certainly please Delta.
League schools are expected to celebrate the new partnership by adopting several Southwest policies this year, including open seating at home athletic events including football, drinks served in tiny plastic cups, all food being replaced by Salty Death Mix, and allowing all fans to check two pieces of luggage for free per game.
Furthermore, all A-List Preferred members who apply to an SEC institution will received preferred admission* and a 10% discount on tuition.
*Vanderbilt excluded.
Air France-KLM Announces Codeshare and Interline with SAS
SAS joining forces with the carriers of SkyTeam took another step forward as the carrier joined with Air France-KLM for a codeshare and interline agreement, beginning September 1.
When the partnership starts, Air France and KLM customers will have access to 33 SAS destinations from its hubs in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, while SAS customers will receive access to AF/KL’s entire European network, even the parts no self-respecting Scandinavian would ever want to visit.
The tie-up also will come with mileage reciprocity for both earning and burning through the Flying Blue and EuroBonus programs respectively. Between Air France and KLM, the combined carrier flies about 200 flights per week from Amsterdam and Paris to the three SAS hubs, while SAS flies 44 weekly flights from the trio to either Amsterdam or Paris/CDG.
- Air India‘s merger with Vistara is moving closer.
- Air Inuit added its first B737-800(SF) to add to its cargo business delivering key items to small, remote Canadian cities that are totally real places and not made up.
- Air Mauritius is finally resuming seasonal service to Geneva this fall.
- Air Sénégal is being audited.
- airBaltic had a nice June.
- Aircalin is in trouble.
- American offered its FAs a substantial rAAise.
- Breeze is blowing into Portsmouth, NH and Montrose, CO.
- Etihad is adding capacity on its new Boston flight.
- Fiji Airways is finally going to give us the non-stop connection between Nadi and Dallas/Fort Worth that’s been lacking for generations.
- Korean is close to a B777X purchase.
- Lufthansa is on the receiving end of an EU probe into its pandemic aid packages.
- Nauru Airlines is studying a possible expansion. Finally.
- Norse Atlantic is expanding its charter business.
- Qantas took so long to respond to complaints last year it brings into question the old adage that practice makes perfect.
- Ryanair likes what it sees in Tangier.
- Singapore‘s new JV with Garuda Indonesia was improved by Singapore’s government.
- SKY is looking into starting domestic operations within Argentina.
- Southwest added Rakesh Gangwal to its Board of Directors.
- United‘s wheels are coming off. Literally. American too.
- Vietnam Airlines received its first A320neo.
I tried to order a large Diet Coke when I was in Minneapolis last week but they wouldn’t give me one. Turns out they only have Mini Sodas.
7 comments on “Cranky Weekly Review Presented by San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport: Delta’s Q2 Financials, Alaska’s Winter Plans”
Misspelling on Air Inuit – Intuit is a software company. Nice livery, and as much as I like the -200s, time for them to go. And there’s got to be some money in those not made up places: just out of curiosity, a few weeks ago I looked at how much it would cost to go to Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, to get out of the Tampa heat this summer. Cheapest R/T from Montreal to Nunavut was a little over $2k. I’m not going, sorry to say.
Random observations:
AS adding Fresno-Guadalajara is a seasonal VFR move, and an mildly interesting one (at least to an ex-Fresnan like me), since both Aeromexico and Volaris fly the route year-round. They are the first US airline, but I’m not sure that’s as big a flex as they seem to think it is.
And the glacier-like speed with which the EU moves never ceases to amaze me. Shouldn’t any reviews involving Lufthansa have been completed before approving the ITA deal? I suspect I know my own answer: the EU is so desperate to get the Italian government out of the Child of Alitalia before ITA manages to blow through another stack of cash and make the EU once again fail to enforce the state aid rules against the Italian government.
Airlines in the far north have held onto the -200s because their small engines allow them to take a kit for landing on gravel strips. Later 737s, with bigger engines, can’t.
Color me surprised that FAT to Guadalajara has 3x daily non-stop flights. I would have guessed 3x weekly would have been more likely. That’s a very large number and probably makes Guadalajara one of Fresno’s most popular non-hub destinations.
Couldn’t agree more with your thought that the EU is saying to Lufthansa, “do whatever you want, just get this zombie of an airline off our payroll once and for all!”
A large amount of the Mexican-American community in the Fresno area is from Guadalajara and the rest of Jalisco state, so there’s a lot of demand for that service.
Something I didn’t think about earlier is that a lot of Fresnans have FF loyalty to American, since DFW was for at least a couple of decades the furthest east you could go from Fresno for east coast connections (I used to use this flight a lot, FAT now also has UA to ORD, and just this year got DL to ATL.) This could be attractive for them so they can take AA miles if they don’t have an AS account.
Will Breeze’s flights to PSM from RSW be on the same/similar days as Allegiant’s flights to PSM from PGD? The airports are only 35 minutes apart on opposite sides of Fort Myers.
That said, very interesting to see that Portsmouth landed another airline & destination. Fares from Portland, Maine (PWM, less than an hour north of PSM, and at least 2 hours to BOS) aren’t usually very cheap, at least in my experience, nor are fares from Manchester (MHT, less than an hour west of PSM, and ~1.5 hours from BOS).
It’s worth noting, however, that there is regular (hourly-ish) scheduled bus service from both the Portsmouth & Manchester areas to BOS at ~$20-30 each way. Also, parking at BOS runs $40+/day for on airport parking, and $20+/day for private off-site parking.
(Yes, I’m a local who searches for flights from PSM, PWM, MHT, and BOS, and who is excited for more nonstops that don’t require sitting in Boston traffic.)
Will the Supreme Court overturning Chevron allow Frontier and Spirit to tie this up in court forever?
On DCA, no Spirit, no JetBlue, No Frontier, No Southwest. Only AA, UA, DL.