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July Industry RASM looking Good

Given that all of DL's new int'l longhaul routes were in operation by the end of June at the latest, DL's performance should be at least as good as in June. There isn't much to believe that any other airline's trends for the rest of the summer will be much different than for July.

The real test will be going into the fall. DL's RASM dropped last fall, probably partly due to its usual inabilty to get capacity out of the system in the fall but there was probably a big book away effect that surrounded DL's bankruptcy filing and the weeks that led up to it. So the real story will come in September's data when it becomes apparent how much DL has improved over its difficult fall a year ago. Since NW's bankruptcy filing was much less expected, the impact may not be as noticeable.
 
The real test will be going into the fall. DL's RASM dropped last fall, probably partly due to its usual inabilty to get capacity out of the system in the fall but there was probably a big book away effect that surrounded DL's bankruptcy filing



The last of the 737-200s will be gone by Sept 1. That will take care of some of the capacity.
 
Yes, DL is pulling alot of capacity out of the system - and will until December when they begin to lap the beginnings of their domestic restructuring. 8 767s were flying domestic a year ago and are not this year; another batch will go through conversion next summer although they will be partially offset by the 757s DL is leasing from AA since they probably won't be ready to fly overseas routes for at least 6 months and possibly until the summer of 2008.

The bookaway factor on DL was significant a year ago and should help DL's performance for late August through late September when DL had begun to rebuild bookings after it became apparent to alot in the public that DL would survive.
 
World,

Bookaway is hardly the factor it once was. Yes, mgmt was promoting it to the courts as a problem, but it really isn't what Pan Am, Eastern, TWA, Continental saw. Nobody thought DL was going to go under right away.

Why would it take 6 months to get the 757's ready? They're already ETOPS certified and have been flying TransAt for quite some time. Last analysis I saw of this purchase was that one big bonus of buying them was that they could be immediately deployed. Still couldn't get flight ops to believe a 757 could go transAt then though.

732's finally gone...THANK GOD. Credit regime change in Network Analysis for that. All they could do was figure another way to use those pieces of gas gussling junk.

The test will be fall winter with all the TranAt flying. If it can sustain the winter cash positive, that would be a good sign...
 
Morgan Stanley has put out it expects RASM this Q to rise 15% at LCC and 13% at DL and NW.


Whitehouse put out in a meeting with Mgrs recently some tidbits on Delta's plans going forward.

The RASM goal was to get within 5% of the big legacy average yield. (i'm assuming adjusted rasm) He said DL was on track here. He offered that if Delta could get within 2% they would be the most profitable carrier in the World. (in real terms, not margin i'm assuming)

Also lie flat seats were going up in Business? This suprised me. But the focus after the cost cutting is getting yield up via various customer service upgrades. Plane orders and better 401k match to replace pensions come after exiting which he said would take place one year from now. So one year from now? Seems like a longer time than needed.
 
Artie,
DL is saying it will exit in the 2nd quarter of 2007 which is 7-9 months from now. I expect DL will have a pension replacement in place by the time it emerges but it might take a few more months. The list you mention has some pretty lofty goals for one year from now.

flyhigh,
While bookaway isn’t what it used to be, you might want to look at May 2006 traffic statistics before you say it is not an issue any more. DL significantly underperformed the industry on traffic, esp. on the domestic system, because of the threat of a pilot strike.

There were indeed an aweful lot of people one year ago that were very concerned that DL would file chapter 7 since it wasn’t at all certain that they would get DIP financing. There were many influential people that were telling their clients not to book on DL and their advice clearly hurt DL at a time when they could least afford it. Remember that there has been nothing about DL’s restructuring process that has been quiet. Every misstep and setback was very public.

In fact, only within the past several months have some of DL’s most critical opponents finally given up on insisting that DL would go out of business. Six months of operating profits in a row might begin to convince people DL does know what it is doing and has turned the ship around.
 
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