Several U.S. airlines this week published details of the projected cost of the recent U.S. government shutdown, during which the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration mandated capacity cuts from Nov. 7 through Nov. 17.
In a Dec. 3 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Delta Air Lines reported that the "temporary softening in November" due to the government shutdown was projected to hit the carrier's fourth-quarter pre-tax profitability by about $200 million, which equates to about 25 cents of earnings per share.
From Nov. 7 "right through for about 10 days, somewhere between a 5 percent to 10 percent reduction, immediate reduction in bookings," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said during a Morgan Stanley conference Wednesday. "Business was a big part of that because people were trying to get their last business trip in prior to Thanksgiving, everybody pulled up. Refunds also were part of that because refunds grew significantly."
American Airlines CFO Devon May at a Goldman Sachs conference on Dec. 3 wouldn't put a total on the cost of the shutdown to the carrier, but he did indicate that at the time of American's third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 23, the industry had projected the impact being "something less than $1 million a day during the shutdown," he said. "That's what we experienced really through the month of October."
When customers started to be affected, with long U.S. Transportation Security Administration lines and stories about shortages of air traffic controllers, "you did see consumer sentiment start to change a bit and bookings started to slow," May said, adding that around Nov. 7 is "when we started to see bookings really slow. And it was an important booking window."
Alaska Air Group's Dec. 3 SEC filing noted the company now expects a negative effect of about 10 cents in adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter, down from "at least $0.40" previously projected. Multiple factors contributed to that adjustment, including "lost revenue due to the government shutdown." The mandated capacity cuts resulted in about 600 cancellations across the company, impacting about 40,000 customers, according to Alaska.
"The disruption and lost revenue are expected to reduce earnings per share by approximately 15 cents per share for the quarter," according to Alaska's SEC filing. "Revenue, which had shown the strongest year-over-year performance trends of 2025 prior to the shutdown, turned sharply negative during the period and, although now positive again year over year, has not fully recovered to pre-shutdown trends."
JetBlue in a Dec. 2 SEC filing said that Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and the shutdown-related cancellations in November combined resulted in approximately a one-point year-over-year reduction to capacity growth in the fourth quarter.
Southwest in a Dec. 5 filing adjusted its full-year earnings before interest and taxes, excluding special items, downward as a "result of lower revenue due to the government shutdown and the impact of higher fuel prices." The carrier now expects full-year 2025 EBIT to be about $500 million, compared with prior projections of $600 million to $800 million.
Still, each carrier also noted that recovery began almost immediately after the shutdown ended.
Delta in its SEC filing noted fourth-quarter demand "remains healthy" and that trends are strong for 2026. Bastian added that the company expects a 2025 profit of about $5 billion, "which is just shy of where we were a year ago," he said.
American's May said that the carrier did not update its guidance because it is waiting to see how the next couple of weeks shape up, but noted the slowdown was temporary, and "we're excited about going into '26," he said. "All of our bookings for 2026 are exactly what we expected them to look like back in October."
Demand for the fourth quarter for JetBlue "remained healthy" with the period's bookings "trending in line with expectations," according to its SEC filing.
Aside from Alaska noting that revenue hadn't yet fully recovered, CFO Shane Tackett at the Goldman Sachs conference said that "last week came in stronger than we had expected had you asked us a week ago," he said. "I think everything looks to be on the right trend line to us, and it looks like we're going to exit the year with a good base of strong demand going into next year."