FWAAA

The future's not real bright for Flyi. Operating loss of $102 million on revenue of $91 million. Its operating expenses were more than double its revenue. Unrestricted cash fell to $107 million as of 3/31/05. Absent a cash infusion, further financial difficulties are likely.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050505/dcth062.html?.v=8

whlinder

Completely ignoring the revenue side (which was abysmal to be kind), what is going on with DH's costs? Comparing to Q1 2004:

Operating expenses: 2005 2004
Salaries and related costs 47,298 45,798 3.3%
Aircraft fuel 36,290 30,688 18.3%
Aircraft maintenance and materials 13,293 15,676 (15.2%)
Aircraft rentals 27,211 25,800 5.5%
Sales and marketing 11,210 5,966 87.9%
Facility rents and landing fees 13,808 11,690 18.1%
Depreciation and amortization 5,811 6,336 (8.3%)
Other 20,350 23,107 (11.9%)
Aircraft retirement/restructuring
charges 18,072 6,751 167.7%
Total operating expenses 193,343 171,812 12.5%

Operating Statistics-First Quarter
Pct.
2005 2004 Change
Revenue passenger miles (000's) 578,456 631,489 (8.4%)
Available seat miles (000's) 963,284 961,747 0.2%
Load Factor 60.1% 65.7% (5.6 pts.)
Passengers 1,276,462 1,479,623 (13.7%)
Revenue departures 40,020 49,873 (19.8%)
Total block hours 60,484 77,964 (22.4%)
Yield per RPM (cents) 14.9 27.6 (46.0%)
Passenger revenue per ASM (cents) 9.0 18.1 (50.3%)
Operating cost per ASM (cents) 20.1 17.9 12.3%
Operating cost per ASM excluding
aircraft retirement/restructuring
charge (cents) 18.2 17.2 5.8%
Operating cost per ASM excluding
fuel and aircraft retirement/
restructuring charge (cents) 14.4 14.0 2.9%
Operating margin (112.7%) 2.9% (115.6%)
Operating margin excluding aircraft
retirement/restructuring charge (92.8%) 6.7% (99.5%)
Average passenger trip length (miles) 453 427 6.1%

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Am I missing something? How on earth does CASM go up from Q1 2004 to Q1 2005 when you dump 25 RJs and start flying A319s?

ByrdluvsAWACO

My question is when do the declare bankruptcy. With only $107 million, I'd imagine it's going to be soon.

audio-nut

I don't think YOY numbers will be meaningful until Q3. Unfortunately I doubt they will make it that long. Remember decent load factors mean NOTHING when you have constant $29 fare sales.

spampurse

Man people are really hung up on the idea that the $29 promotion hurt DH. Just like the CEO said in the conference call, $29 was the price point... all fares were not $29 and pretty much the only fares that fell into that bracket were the mid-week flights that were going out empty anyway. Even during the fare sale the prices during "peak travel times" (ie. weekends) was rather competetive. The conference call also brought out that when you compare the $29 sale to the $44 sale that was several weeks before it, the average price of the fare bought was $10 higher during the $29 fare sale!

Seat2C

Son, here's what those fare sales have done. In the 4th quarter, FLYI had a BELF of 104%. With fare sales, FLYI had a 134.2% BELF in the first quarter. I can't think of when I've seen a higher BELF.
FLYI's CASM remained the same at just over 20 cents while RASM (which will fall with increased stage lengths) also remained the same at 9 cents.
This company is losing money on every ticket sold, but they're making up for it in volume. Not a great business plan.

DataBaseDude

Does onyone know if they stuck some of the one-time charges into these numbers? One of the statements said that they had some legal fees that they paid, where did they stick 'em?

Also the number of flights out of IAD dwindled, how many jets are they operating in May?
How many are they planning on operating in June?

StSebastian

Either US or CO had a BELF of 115% in the 2002-2003 timeframe as featured in some of the news articles around that time. Because of the other issues involved, I believe all of the legacies had 90% of higher (and obviously none of them were making it).

DataBaseDude

I think that they have several aircraft that were sitting idle during the first quarter before they were returned to the lessor that were inflating the 'aircraft rent' number; or the Airbuses had already been delivered and were costing money but not being flown. (I can't imagine that they managed to have 4 airbuses delivered in the last 2 weeks of April.) That's all that I can come up with.


Either that or they are screwed, one or the other.