Facing pressure from low fares and yields, Delta Air Lines'
passenger revenue declined 5 percent year over year in the third quarter to
$9.1 billion.
While the pricing for fares booked within a 21-day window is
"improving," the carrier is facing "the weakest revenue
environment in recent memory," CEO Ed Bastian said. Traffic was flat for
the quarter and corporate travel volumes were steady, but yield declined 5.3
percent.
The systemwide
outage in August that caused about 2,300 flight cancellations over three
days cost Delta about $150 million in pre-tax income. Of the 6.8 percent
year-over-year decline in passenger revenue per available seat mile, about 2
percentage points came from the outage. Still, Delta reported a 99 percent
mainline completion factor and an 84 percent on-time arrival rate for the
quarter, Bastian said.
The carrier's capacity increased 1.5 percent year over year,
and its load factor declined 1.4 percentage points to 85.4 percent. Delta plans
a "cautious approach" to increasing capacity in 2017, according to
Bastian.
It reported a net income of $1.3 billion for the
quarter, down 4 percent year over year.