Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL reported traffic figures for May 2018. Consolidated traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs), came in at 19.69 billion, up 2.9% year over year.
Consolidated capacity (or available seat miles/ASMs) climbed 3.5% to 22.83 billion on a year-over-year basis. Consolidated load factor or percentage of seats filled by passengers contracted 40 basis points to 86.3% due to capacity expansion exceeding traffic growth.
Additionally, the carrier recorded an on-time performance (mainline) of 85% and a completion factor (mainline) of 99.9%. Approximately, 16.8 million passengers boarded Delta in the month.
In the first five months of 2018, Delta generated consolidated RPMs of 87.23 billion (up 3% year over year) and ASMs of 103.74 billion (up 3.1% year over year). Load factor in the period was 84.1% compared with 84.2% at the end of May 2017.
Last month, the company made headlines with its CEO Ed Bastian announcing his intention to resume flight services to those destinations where the likes of Etihad Airways, Etihad and Emirates had earlier held an advantageous position. His comment followed after the United States and UAE inked a deal to resolve a long-standing feud between the two countries over government subsidies.
Keeping with its CEO’s words, this Atlanta-based carrier announced that it will resume non-stop flight operations to Mumbai, India next year onward. In fact, to facilitate air travel on this particular route, Delta aims at expanding its codeshare relationship with the Mumbai-based Jet Airways. Extension of this contract would thus allow passengers to fly to other Indian cities as well.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Delta has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Transportation sector are GATX Corporation GATX, Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. EXPD and SkyWest, Inc. SKYW. While GATX and SkyWest carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), Expeditors sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Shares of GATX, Expeditors and SkyWest have rallied more than 18%, 37% and 61%, respectively, in a year.
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