(New York) Delta Air Lines warned Thursday that the Omicron variant would likely postpone the resumption of air traffic by two months and cause a loss in the first quarter, but the US company was optimistic for the year as a whole.
Posted at 9:04 am
Particularly contagious, Omicron has affected many employees in the airline industry since mid-December. In addition to bad weather, nearly 32,000 flight cancellations were recorded in the United States between Christmas Eve and Wednesday.
At Delta, around 8,000 people have been infected over the past four weeks, detailed company boss Ed Bastian in an interview on CNBC. There were no serious health problems a priori “but it kept them from working for a while,” he added.
As this was just when demand was at its highest for two years, “the combination of the two events could not have come at the worst time,” noted the manager.
But the situation is improving and there are hardly any cancellations.
“Delta’s operations stabilized over the past week and returned to their pre-holiday performance,” Bastian said in a statement.
Omicron, however, is expected to continue to impact demand until the extended holiday weekend around February 20, Delta argues.
The rise in the group’s turnover should therefore mark a pause: while in December it was around 80% of what it was in 2019, before the pandemic caused traffic to drop. air, it is expected to return to around 72% to 76% of its 2019 level for the whole of the first quarter.
Fuel increase
“Omicron is expected to delay resuming the claim for 60 days,” said Bastian.
For the future, however, the group is “confident for a solid travel season in spring and summer as there is still a significant margin of demand for tourism trips as for business trips”, said he added.
Omicron, which mainly affected the company’s operations during the last two weeks of December, slightly increased Delta’s operating costs, as did the increase in the price of kerosene.
The company expects the first quarter to pay between $ 2.35 and $ 2.50 per gallon, compared to $ 2.10 in the previous quarter.
The company will be able to adapt if there is a “huge increase” in fuel costs, Bastian told CNBC. “We have already faced it in the past.”
Over the quarter as a whole, the group suffered a net loss of $ 408 million, mainly due to losses of $ 564 million related to investments in other companies, accounting adjustments and special incentive payments.
Adjusted for exceptional items, the group however posted a profit of 143 million dollars, or 22 cents per share against 14 cents expected by analysts.
Delta was up 1.6% in electronic trading before the New York Stock Exchange opened.
Over the whole of 2021, the group posted a net profit of 280 million dollars, fueled in particular by government aid for the payment of salaries. Adjusted for exceptional items, the group suffered a loss of $ 2.6 billion.