Another profitable quarter

with revenues higher than expected and net earnings of $15 million...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/JetBlu....html?x=0&.v=1

* Operating income for the quarter was $66 million, resulting in a 7.7% operating margin, compared to operating income of $22 million and a 2.4% operating margin in the third quarter of 2008.

* Pre-tax income for the quarter was $23 million, which includes an accounting gain of $3 million related to the valuation of JetBlue's auction rate securities. Excluding this accounting gain, JetBlue's pre-tax income for the quarter would have been $20 million. This compares to a pre-tax loss of $10 million in the third quarter of 2008.

* Net income for the third quarter was $15 million, or $0.05 per diluted share. Excluding the accounting gain, JetBlue's net income for the quarter would have been $12 million, or $0.04 per diluted share. This compares to JetBlue's third quarter 2008 net loss of $8 million, or $0.03 per diluted share.

"Despite a tough economic environment, we reported our third consecutive quarterly profit, thanks in large part to the hard work of our dedicated crewmembers," said Dave Barger, JetBlue's CEO. "The actions we took last year, including restructuring our fuel hedge portfolio, reallocating capacity and selling and deferring aircraft, have led to significantly improved results. While the uncertain economic environment continues to pressure demand for air travel, we have been able to leverage our strong brand and superior product to introduce innovative ways to attract new customers and build customer loyalty."

Its always nice to see an airline make a profit .

Nice numbers, indeed. They spent $148MM less on fuel in this quarter than the year prior. That's pretty huge. PRASM and yields were down about 8% so the lower costs were pretty much critical to realizing a profit. CASM excluding fuel was up 8.5% which is also a tough place to be in.

Their fuel hedges for Q3 cost them $23MM on paper (no cash losses). But that hasn't stopped them from growing their hedging positions:
Being hedged now for such a large amount of fuel at least lets them know pretty well what the actual costs are going to be and that's always nice.

I'm looking forward to the Conf Call at 9am EDT to see what other bits they have to share.

Good going B6, but petroleum prices are going up FAST suddenly. Hope that doesn't throw a monkey wrench into the works!

Sorry for the short notice...tune in now!

It sounds like jetBlue has been actively engaged in ramping up its fuel hedges and has its balance sheet in order plus is managing to give the team members a raise. Always nice to be proactively taking care of the employees and the customers--something not very many airlines seem to be doing these days.

They're ~30% hedged for 2010 and expect their hedging positions to be revenue positive for Q4 but negative for the full year 2009.

Apparently the new pilot deal went into effect on June 1 with the payouts coming at some point in Q4.

Those are just a couple of the things I picked up in the conf call.

I think the call options are VERY clever as the upfront cost are relatively low, and ANY increase in the price of crude oil will be matched 80-100% by an increase in the value of these options.