Second quarter earnings reported-US makes profit

[freedom]

Ok gang , closest to the actual Q2 numbers will get the grand prize of RESPECT (sorry our company and it’s workers are too poor for anything else )

And for bonus points , what do you think our stock, ticker symbol LCC will close at on Thursday ?



My guess is we lose 350 million and our stock closes at 1.75 ... yeah yeah , i know i'm a pessmist ...

 

[Poug Darker]

Everyone is reporting a revenue hit of 20-25%, except LUV (-8.8%) due to no international exposure.
Results won't be good.
But what will be interesting is how managment is handling this economy. UAL managed a small profit on smart hedge trading and accounting charges. LCC bought and is writing off failed derivative investments to the tune of 400+ million (although they'll spin it and say that the investment is intact and will pay interest payments over the term, although the paper is practically worthless and they'll never recover the money they put into it).
How LCC hedges fuel will also be interesting. UAL reported being hedged 64% in the 2nd half of this year. LUV is hedged 30% in Q3 and 45% in Q4, and 50% in 2010 in the mid to low 70's/bbl. I'll wager since it is contract time (and losing money is in season) there are few, if any, hedges. Ahem, why didn't mgmt hedge when oil was at $35/bbl??? How much cheaper could it get? Oh, that's right, no cash because it was tied up in WORTHLESS derivatives (400 MILLION dollars). Someone should be fired for that one.
So, look past the bottom line loss figure, and look at how they are navigating the company through these turbulent times....

 

[SpinDoc]

Best Guess is just shy of $100M loss after specials. US is about 1/3 the size of UAL who had an operating loss of $341M. Who knows, it could be even well south of $100M because the company continues to collect large amounts of cash for ala carte fees. We shall see.

 

[FWAAA]

UAL managed a small profit on smart hedge trading and accounting charges.

Uhh, no.

UA's GAAP profit resulted because its failed hedges gained some value as the price of fuel rose this year. In the second half of last year, UA wrote off a couple billion dollars of failed hedges that had not yet matured. When fuel rose in the first half of 2009, UA had some non-cash gains on some of its failed hedges. Smart hedge trading? Nope.

My guess for the US second quarter loss is $200 million excluding special items.

 

[Itestwell]

IMO this Quarter will prove that record load factors do NOT a profit make.

Already been proven. AA, CO, DL, and UA all stated this in their respective webcasts. Not need to wait on US to prove this.

 

[FWAAA]

The first quarter net loss was $260 million excluding special items. Most airlines that have reported already have shown imroved results in the second quarter compared to their first quarter. So a loss of $150 million to $200 million excluding special items sounds likely.

 

[gaucho99]

Ahem, why didn't mgmt hedge when oil was at $35/bbl??? How much cheaper could it get? Oh, that's right, no cash because it was tied up in WORTHLESS derivatives (400 MILLION dollars). Someone should be fired for that one.

You cannot hedge fuel at the current price. You have to hedge it at what the experts think it will be selling at in the future. IIRC, when oil was at $35 bbl, the hedge price for a year down the road was about what the current price is.

My guess for the 2nd qtr is a $75 million dollar loss.

 

[fudgerunyard]

I happen to think the loss won't be as severe as the other Legacy carriers due to LCC's rather small int'l footprint....which is the area that's been hit the hardest. While domestic traffic/revenue is down somewhere between 7-10%, int'l traffic is down 20%+ in many cases. I'll take a stab in the dark and say its somwehere between $110-130 million.

 

[bigbusboy]

My best guess says a loss of $80-90 million. I'm also thinking the 600 furloughs on the ground and 300 from flight attendants are just the beginning too. PB is right when he said full airplanes does not a profit make. I'll bet Parker is working on some remake of our a/c orders with airbus right now. The five 330-200s this year will probably be it for a while; at least until demand returns. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[AirbusAVE]

IMO this Quarter will prove that record load factors do NOT a profit make.

I'm looking at a relatively small loss of less than 50 Million. Business Travel is in the dumper, liesure travel remains relatively strong due to deep discounting. US Airways aggressive fee structure will hide the fundamental facts,

That one can NOT be an LCC with a hub and spoke network carrier business model.

That there is a cost associated with poor customer service as one discounts deeper than competitors in order to lose less money.

Is not most every LCC a hub and spoke network carrier with a business model with a few point-to-point routes? Airtran, Air Berlin, Jetblue, etc. etc.

Even belovéd Southwest has a few hubs of it´s own.



I think that one cannot be an LCC with Regional jets, personally.

 

[Elevation]

I happen to think the loss won't be as severe as the other Legacy carriers due to LCC's rather small int'l footprint....which is the area that's been hit the hardest. While domestic traffic/revenue is down somewhere between 7-10%, int'l traffic is down 20%+ in many cases. I'll take a stab in the dark and say its somwehere between $110-130 million.

-87 mil

 

[BoeingBoy]

$115-120 million loss before one-time items.

Jim

 

[JayBrian]

Here is the earnings announcement

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-Airways-G...ml?x=0&.v=1

 

[jimntx]

Looks like Elevation is the winner once you look past the "special items." We at AMR should be so lucky as to have a loss of "only" $98 million.

 

[WCT]

WOW. I am amazed. And shocked too.