Delta Leads off Q1 Earnings

Delta led off Q1 earnings season this week, posting operating revenue just shy of $16 billion, with an operating profit of $501 million, giving it an operating margin of 3.2%. The overall numbers came in line with its initial guidance for the quarter, with outlook for Q2 to end up with a profit around $1 billion. It expects Q2 revenue to increase between 10 and 15% leading to an operating margin of 6-8% and approximately $1-$1.50 earnings per share. Upon hearing this, American CEO Robert Isom commented, “that’s for, like, the whole year, right?”

The adjusted revenue figure of $14.2 billion was a Q1 record for Delta and a 10% jump from 2025. Premium revenue — the only revenue Delta cares about — jumped 14% over Q1 in ’25, while its ransom renumeration from American Express was in excess of $2 billion. Domestic unit revenue grew 6%, with international growing 5% — led by Transatlantic.

As expected, fuel was a major factor on the expense side of the ledger, though high prices didn’t kick in until the back half of the quarter. Non-fuel CASM was up $0.15, about 6%, while fuel was up 8% YoY. Delta paid an average price of $2.62 per gallon at the pump, a price that goes up when counting how much Ed and Tom spent on scratch-off tickets every time they fueled up an aircraft.

Delta finished the quarter with $8.1 billion in liquidity, a figure that includes cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments, Tom Brady’s Super Bowl rings, and the casita Ed built on Tom’s property in Las Vegas so he’s “available to hang when Tom is free.”

Cape Air‘s Window to the World

Cape Air Flight 5001 from Nantucket to Boston on Monday morning was forced to return to Nantucket shortly after departure when an “upper portion of the main cabin door opened while in flight.” Cranky was able to confirm with Cape Air representatives that its normal course of action is to only open the doors to the cabin while on the ground, so this situation presented a change from regular operations.

The aircraft was able to return to ACK without incident and is now out of service while it undergoes inspection. We at Cranky suggested to the same Cape Air representative that instead of taking the aircraft out of service, it just shut the door while in the air. Apparently that was considered, but passed on.

The aircraft was a 9-passenger Cessna 402C, one of 64 in Cape Air’s fleet.

American Shores Up Venezuela Plans

American announced several weeks ago it intended to resume service to Venezuela after the regime change which took place several months ago, but its original announcement was light on details.

We know more now, as the carrier shared it intends to begin flying to Caracas (CCS) as soon as this month, with service slated to resume on April 30. Envoy will operate 1x daily flights for American Eagle on an E-175 and mark the first service to the country for AA since 2019. AA is the first US airline to announce its intention to fly to Venezuela, going with the logic that Venezuelans have been busy with domestic affairs and might not realize just how bad AA is operationally, giving it a leg up on other airlines.

This comes following a March 19 announcement in which the State Department lowered Venezuela’s travel advisory to Level 3, “Reconsider Travel,” which for Venezuela is a major upgrade. It joins Colombia, Egypt, Guatelmala, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, and Qatar — amongst a few others — in the Level 3 club.

Spirit Sells 20

Spirit announced CSDS Asset Management as the sucker winner for 20 A320 aircraft drenched in yellow paint.

The sale includes 13 A320ceo and seven A321ceo airplanes with a street value of about $533 million. For the transaction to go through, it will have to be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on April 23. Spirit used the time-honored tradition of showing added value in the purchase for bidders, reminding them, “Buy a used Spirit jet, get a free collection of half-charged vape pens and mystery crumbs.”

Spirit said in a statement: “The sale of these aircraft will improve its financial situation by reducing related labor, maintenance, storage, flying, and other associated costs.” It left out the fact that the 20 planes it chose to sell off all have a similar BO stink that it’s been unable to get rid of, no matter what it tried. One source said the upon the sale, the planes also contained dozens of boarding passes buried deep in seat pockets from passengers who are still arguing about the bag fee they were charged at the gate.

When asked to comment to Cranky, a Spirit spokesperson told us “These planes aren’t used — they’re seasoned. Years of embedded pretzels and BuzzBallz give the cabin our signature Spirit musk.”

American Increases Basic Bag Fees

Much of the industry has raised checked bag fees in the last week due to the escalating price of fuel (which they’ll surely roll back any day now if the ceasefire in Iran holds and the price returns to the mid-$60s per barrel, RIGHT?!?), but American is tAAking it a step further, making its checked bag fees more punitive for its most price sensitive customers — those on Basic Economy tickets. AA increased its fee by $10 on most tickets, meaning $50 for the first bag and $60 for the second (there’s a $5 “discount” for paying online before travel).

But Basic Economy customers will be hit with a $55 charge for their first bag, and a $65 fee for the second for tickets purchasd on or after May 18. The $5 “discount” also applies here, bringing the price down slightly. This comes alongside a required payment to pick a seat on all Basic tickets also beginning May 18 — even for customers gullible enough to have with status on AA.

• Aeroflot‘s 2025 earnings, reported by the Russian government were exceptional. They really were. Seriously.
• Air Canada is adding new destinations for pale Canadians to work on their winter tan.
• Air China is back in the North Korea business. Sorta.
• Air India CEO Campbell “Soup” Wilson stepped down.
• Air Sénégal made a winner out of everyone that had April 9 as the day it would return its last A330-900neo.
• airBaltic is looking for investors.
• Allegiant will close its base in Savannah late this year.
• Avianca will add more than 3,000 flights to carry fans to and from matches at this summer’s World Cup.
• Jetstar‘s first refurbished Dreamliner took off for the first time.
• Marathon Airways began the long journey of serving Libya.
• Oman Air carried 1.45 million passengers in Q1.
• Saudia will return to Abu Dhabi, Amman, and Dubai on Saturday.
• Spring Airlines is considering a $72 million buyback.
• SUM Air added everything up and realized it needed to order up to eight new ATR 72-600s.
• Turkish named Ahmet Olmuştur its new CEO.
• WestJet added Copa as an interline partner.
• Wizz Air is opening a new base in Turin.

What rock group has four men who don’t sing?

Mount Rushmore.