N830MH

Wow!!! Great job DL!!! Keep it up!!! Let's try to ordered more newest 777-200LR aircraft anytime soon. What about DL will acquisitions more MD90s will come online.

Geogirl1234

Delta Air Lines reported its biggest quarterly profit in a decade on Monday, but investors were concerned that Delta and the rest of the airline industry would repeat the mistakes that have jeopardized many past recoveries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/bu...r.html?_r=1&hp

WBurcham

Do they mean paying their employees more and improving the hard & soft product?

itsaboutthejourney

I think investors are more concerned about capacity expansion. I'm more concerned that they keep up the investments in employees, and hard & soft products.

Clearly the merger is working from a profit standpoint

United747

That is great that there profits are going up now, especially in this rebounding economy. I wonder if they will keep going up as people travel more or if people will choose to fly more budget oriented airlines I.e. Southwest.

Delta747

pbarnette

I assume this is sarcasm? If not, let's wait until they string together a few quarters of success before we get too excited. I mean, the sun shines on a dog's... and all that.

Still, you have to hand it to DL. To date, they have pretty much delivered on the financial benefits from the merger that they predicted.

I think the concern is that DL, and the industry in general, will once again get themselves tangled up in a slew of commitments (labor contracts, capacity, debt) that leave them with no flexibility and little margin for error. I mean, a 10% increase in fuel costs would have nearly halved their profit for the quarter and pretty much erased the YTD profit. Considering that DL's average cost per gallon for fuel was 25% higher as recently as Q408 (and even higher in the quarters before that), anyone want to bet that it couldn't happen again?

GUWonder

This has been expected to be a good quarter financially for many airlines with the year and years ahead better than in quite some time -- and the airline manufacturers are finding confirmation of that at the big airshow this week in the UK.

GUWonder

The LCC's share of the domestic market in the US is no longer growing like it was in recent years, and the legacy carriers/majors have pretty much stabilized their hold on the market more recently.

Unless the likes of Southwest increase capacity tremendously, the supply growth leaders in the US -- going by plane manufacturers' sentiment -- are likely to be the legacy carriers.

Sabai

I am impressed, seriously. With neither a competent IT department nor a competitive FFP, Delta is raking in the dough. Who woulda thunk?

I guess the question is how long can this performance be sustained? DL must be an attractive target for other carriers who can easily best them in these two major areas of weakness.

pbarnette

I think many would have thunk, particularly with regards to the FFP, since there is pretty much zero correlation between a "quality" FFP and profitability.

The next US legacy carrier to become profitable by focusing on goosing the revenue numbers will be the first. DL's best hope of sustaining profitability will be aggressive cost control, and they seem to be doing okay in this regard.

avidflyer

Yes, sarcasm. A well run airline CAN make money on a blend of fares.

Beckles

A rising tide lifts all ships, a single quarter's profit in a quarter where every legacy airline is expected to report their biggest quarterly profit in xx years hardly proves that the merger is working. The true test of the merger's success is not how well they do in the good times, but how well they do in the bad times.

stlBased

+1 ^

The key will be keeping cross-cycle profitability even if just at the operating level in the + category. 10% is indeed rather impressive for an airline but these are of course the 'good times'.