The rebound of corporate sales after a "spring swoon" of uncertainty and tariff announcements drove Delta Air Lines' third-quarter 4 percent revenue increase, along with premium and loyalty demand, executives said on a Thursday morning earnings call.
"Corporate suspended travel in the early part of the year," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said during the call. "There was some level of pent-up demand to get back out. … Clearly, for four or five months this spring, we were not seeing any corporate growth, and then they all got back on the road together at the same time."
Third-quarter corporate sales increased 8 percent year over year and "trended positively" throughout the quarter, with sequential improvement across all sectors, Delta president Glen Hauenstein said, adding that domestic corporate sales growth exceeded that figure, hitting mid-teen percentages in the carrier's coastal hubs.
Hauenstein cited cities where Delta has made recent investments, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle, as "where corporate travel is significantly improving year over year and our share is improving."
Those cities also are "where a considerable amount of premium lives," Bastian added. "Corporate travel is our bread and butter. … Corporate travel is premium, right? … We see a considerable amount of continued momentum forward in premium."
Third-quarter passenger revenue for the main cabin was down 4 percent year over year, but premium-product revenue increased 9 percent for the period, according to Delta.
Hauenstein estimated that corporate travel accounts for 30 percent to 40 percent of premium revenue. He also added that the difference between yields on corporate and high-end leisure were "very, very different. … Those have diverted," he said. In some cases, personal leisure is higher than corporate, and one of the issues Delta has had to work on is "sometimes we run out of seats for corporate, and we have to go and put more seats in the market because corporate was getting squeezed out by higher-yielding leisure."
In Delta's recent survey of corporate customers, 90 percent of respondents anticipate that 2026 travel volumes will increase or remain steady year over year, Hauenstein said. "We see opportunities for further growth as corporate confidence rebuilds."
Still, while corporate revenue has slightly exceeded 2019 levels, due to higher fares, Hauenstein said that the number of business travel passengers booking still is in the high 70s percentages compared with pre-pandemic levels. "As business continues to normalize, we have a lot of runway to continue to expand the corporate demand."
Delta Q3 Metrics
Delta reported $13.5 billion in third-quarter passenger revenue, up 3 percent year over year, on total revenue of nearly $16.7 billion, which was an increase of 6 percent versus Q3 2024. Net income was $1.4 billion, up from the $1.3 billion reported a year earlier.
Capacity for the quarter increased 4 percent compared with Q3 2024. Fuel costs were an average of $2.25 per gallon.
The carrier projects fourth-quarter revenue to increase 2 percent to 4 percent year over year.
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