Q2 2023 Delta Air Lines Inc Earnings Call
Good morning everyone and welcome to the Delta Airlines June quarter 2023 financial results conference call.
My name is Matthew, and I'll be your coordinator.
At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode until we conduct a question-and-answer session following the presentation.
As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.
If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Julie Stewart, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our June quarter 2023 earnings call.
Joining us from Atlanta today, our CEO Ed Bastian, our President Glenn Hauenstein, our CFO Dan Janke. Ed will open the call with an overview of Delta's performance and strategy. Glenn will provide an update on the revenue environment and Dan will discuss costs in our balance sheet. After the prepared remarks, we'll take analyst questions.
Please, we please ask that you limit yourself to one question and a brief follow up so we can get to as many of you as possible. And after the analyst Q&A, we will move to our media questions.
Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statement.
Some of the factors that may cause such differences are described in Delta's SEC filings. We'll also discuss non-GAAP financial measures and all results that exclude special items unless otherwise noted. You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on the investor relations page at IR.delta.com. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.
Thanks Julie. Good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us.
Today, thanks to the great work of our team, we announced record revenue and earnings reflecting the strength of demand for and momentum of Delta's differentiated brand.
During the June quarter, we generated earnings of $2.68 per share, a 90% increase over last year. This marks the highest quarterly earnings result in our history, an achievement that moves Delta beyond recovery and firmly on a great path forward.
Revenue was 19% above last year and we achieved a 17% operating margin.
This resulted in operating income of $2.5 billion, bringing our operating profit over the last 12 months to $6 billion.
We generated over $1 billion of free cash during the quarter, bringing our first half free cash flow to $3 billion. We continued to repay debt and we reinstated a quarterly dividend, signifying strong execution on our three-year plan and creating value for our owners.
At Delta, transportation is what we do, but experiences are what we deliver. And that's made possible by the exceptional service provided by the industry's best employees.
The 90,000 Delta people continue to deliver for our customers during this busy summer season.
Over the 4th of July weekend, our people delivered a great operation completing over 21,000 flights with a 99.5% completion factor and industry leading on-time performance.
The Delta people continue to be recognized. During the quarter, the points guy ranked Delta as the best U.S. airline for the fifth year in a row, with consistently high scores for reliability, customer experience, network, and loyalty.
Sharing our success with our team is core to Delta's culture, and we continue to maintain a position of industry leadership on pay.
During the quarter eligible employees received a 5% pay increase on the 1st of April and here today. We have accrued over 660 million dollars in profit sharing.
In fact, more than the total profit sharing paid out for full year 2022.
We expect our profit-sharing payout next February will continue to lead the industry by a wide margin.
We will always be guided by our values of putting our people and our customers first. They are the driving force of our success. I want to thank our entire team for all they do for Delta and our customers.
As I've recently noted, the industry backdrop remains constructive.
Air travel demand is strong and the consumer is in good financial shape, particularly the premium consumer base that we target.
After years of spending on goods, consumers want to travel.
It's their number one big ticket purchase priority, and they desire premium experiences.
No one provides us better than Delta.
At the same time, aviation infrastructure is still fragile, and the industry continues to face multiple constraints across the supply chain.
At the same time, aviation infrastructure is still fragile, and the industry continues to face multiple constraints across the supply chain, aircraft delivery delays, and training needs.
As a result, we see a significant gap between the supply that is in place and the supply that is in place.
and what demand could sustain. And we expect this gap will remain for an extended period of time.
Turning to our outlook, with our first half performance and visibility into the back half of the year, we are raising our full year outlook and now expect earnings of $6 to $7 per share. For the September quarter, demand momentum continues.
We expect to deliver double-digit revenue growth of mid-teens operating margin and earnings of two dollars and twenty cents to two dollars and fifty cents per share Glenn and Dan will provide more details on the components of our outlook.
As we move to 2024 and beyond, our path forward is clear.
The strategy that we shared at Investor Day just a few weeks ago positions Delta incredibly well for the future.
Our long-term priorities are to run the world's best airline, unlock the power of our brand, transform through digital, and deliver long-term shareholder value.
Our strategy is underpinned by a commitment to financial performance.
With a focus on free cash flow, return on invested capital, and earnings durability.
We are currently executing ahead of our three-year financial plan and are well positioned to achieve our 2024 earnings target of over $7 per share.
On free cash flow, we introduced a new goal to generate over $10 billion of free cash flow from 2023 to 2025.
strong cash generation will enable us to return our balance sheet to investment grade metrics while consistently reinvesting in the business.
In closing, thanks to the outstanding work of our people, Delta continues to set itself apart.
We have unique opportunities to grow earnings by leveraging our powerful brand
extending our durable competitive advantages, and accelerating our digital transformation.
competitive advantages in accelerating our digital transformation. One other point I'd like to add.
While our team has been hard at work returning the level of excellence to the skies that our customers deserve, we have not let go of our commitments to our community. Our team was recently recognized as the number one corporate blood drive donor for the American Red Cross at the sixth consecutive year with record units of blood collected.
To me, these types of achievements are as rewarding as the great financial and operational results that we are publishing today at what makes this company truly great.
Thank you again, and with that let me turn the call over to Glenn and Dan to go through the details of the quarter.
Thank you, Ed, and good morning. I want to start by recognizing our people for their exceptional work during the always challenging peak summer travel period. Thank you.
Delta produced record June quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 19% over last year.
Revenues were ahead of our initial expectations with momentum in June . June 30th was a new record for industry volume and our highest summer revenue day in history.
Total unit revenues were at 1.3% over prior year on improved yield and load factor.
Consumer demand strength continues to be the primary driver of our revenue growth. Business travel in the quarter improved year over year primarily driven by international.
Overall, international passenger revenue grew 61% led by the transatlantic and Latin America.
Domestic passenger revenue was 8% higher on a similar capacity increase.
Premium revenue grew 25%, supporting growth in unit revenues and continuing to outperform main cabin.
Delta Premium Select is now offered on over 80% of our widebody fleet and customer response to the product has been terrific with returns outpacing our expectations.
Total loyalty revenue was up 20% versus last year with continued momentum in our American Express co-brand portfolio.
The numeration of 1.7 billion was 22% higher year over year with 3.4 billion through the first half. We are firmly on track to exceed the 6.5 billion target for this year and focused on reaching our new long term goal of 10 billion.
Turning to the outlook for September quarter, we expect total revenue to be similar to 2Q, increasing 11% to 14% year-over-year.
On capacity outlook at 16% growth, unit revenues are expected to be 2-4% lower.
While a deceleration from the June quarter, this is consistent with historic performance between 2Q and 3Q when factoring in the holiday shifts and tougher international comps as we lock the removal of restrictions.
Domestically, demand remains robust and our core hub rebuild is advancing, with growth focused in Atlanta. In our coastal hubs, we are leveraging facility investments and progressively improving margins.
On international demand strength is continuing and we are confident in delivering record profitability and margins across all three international entities.
System bookings for travel beyond Labor Day are encouraging into the fall.
On corporate, we expect steady improvement in demand.
Our recent corporate survey shows businesses expect to increase travel in the second half with several of the least recovered sectors conveying optimism for increased travel in the fall.
Similar optimism was reflected in Morgan Stanley 's recent Global Corporate Travel survey, where respondents indicated travel was expected to grow 9% year-over-year in the second half and 8% into 2024.
Delta's capacity growth will normalize to mid-single digits in 2024, enabling us to further improve reliability, optimize the network, and drive efficiency to reduce unit costs and support margin expansion.
With an integrated and proven commercial strategy and the best people in the industry, we have significant opportunity ahead.
In closing, I'm so proud of the team for delivering a great first half of the year and excited about the momentum we are building.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Dan to talk about the financials. Great. Thank you, Glenn, and good morning to everyone. In the June quarter, we delivered earnings of $2.68 per share and an operating margin of 17%.
ahead of our guidance and a significant improvement over last year. Our non-fuel unit costs were down, up 2.4% year over year.
Fuel prices for the quarter averaged $2.52 per gallon, including a refinery benefit of $0.04. We generated operating cash flow of $2.6 billion and after reinvesting $1.6 billion into the business, free cash flow was $1.1 billion.
Liquidity ended the quarter at $8.8 billion with adjusted net debt of $19.8 billion.
During the first half of 2023, we repaid $3 billion of debt.
including $1.4 billion of early repayments with a focus on our high-cost debt.
For the year, we expect to repay over $4 billion of gross debt, resulting in interest costs over $100 million lower than our initial expectations.
Our leverage ratio improved to 3.2 times on a trailing 12-month basis.
and this is down from five times at the end of the year. During the quarter, we announced the reinstatement of a quarterly dividend, opening the shareholder base to yield-focused investors. Now moving on to guidance for the September quarter and full year.
We expect mid-teen operating margins and earnings of $2.20, $2.50 per share in the September quarter.
Non-fuel unit costs have reached an important inflection point. We expect non-fuel unit costs to climb 1 to 3% year over year in the September quarter. This is consistent with our expectations for a low single digit decline in the second half of 2023.
Rebuild costs are substantially behind us and capacity is returning through our most efficient core hubs.
July marks our peak ASM production for the year and capacity seasonally declining in the fall and winter.
As our capacity growth normalizes, it enables our operating teams to drive efficiency. We have over a billion dollar opportunity from initiatives across the enterprise as hiring and training slow and our workforce gains experience.
Improving our non-fuel unit cost is an enterprise-wide priority and remains within our control.
On fuel, we expect a September quarter fuel price to be in 2050 cents to 70 cents per gallon. We expect a September quarter fuel price to be in 2050 cents to 70 cents per gallon.
This includes a four-step refinery benefit. As part of our routine maintenance done once every five years, the refinery will undergo a turnaround in mid-Satabra that will continue through November .
With production offline during this period, we expect the refinery to break even during the second half of the year. With our second quarter performance and our third quarter outlook, we now expect the full year earnings to be $6 to $7 per share, and an operating margin greater than 12%.
and free cash flow of $3 billion. Delivering these financial results also positions us to reduce our leverage ratio to three times by the end of the year.
and significantly improve our return on invested capital. For the full year, we expect our return on invested capital to be approximately 14%.
A six point improvement versus last year.
In closing, we're ahead of plan in 2023, and in 2024, we're making confident in delivering earnings per share of over $7, share while generating over $4 billion of free cash flow, and achieving our investment grade metrics.
As we shared at Investor Day, we see significant opportunities beyond 2024. As we build on the strength of the core airline.
leverage our existing capital base to grow high margin revenue streams, and deliver durable earnings through a full economic cycle.
We couldn't do this without the hard work of our employees who are delivering for our customers every day.
I'd like to thank the Delta people for all they do. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Julie for Q&A.
Matthew, can you please remind the analyst how to queue up for questions?
Certainly. If you have a question or comment, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing a question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality.
We do ask that all Q&A participants please limit to one question and one follow-up question, then re-enter the queue.
Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone.
Your first question is coming from Helen Becker from TD Cohen. Your line is live.
Thanks very much operator. Hi team, thanks for the time here. I just have a point of clarification and then my question. The point of clarification is down. Did you just say that you're going to do for more than 4 billion in free cash flow for this year? And is that an official guidance?
update and then my question really has to do with as you think about your digital footprint and the technology investments that you have to make how are you thinking about you know what's customer facing versus what's back-office in the cost to invest in in in both
Thank you.
I'll start with the first one and as it relates to free cash flow for this year, 2023, at InvestiDay we rate our guys from $2 billion to $3 billion. $3 billion is the number for this year and we expect as part of our three year plan, we said that we'd be at $4 billion greater in 2024.
And Ed talked about the three-year collective plan that we're working towards, which is over $10 billion for the cumulative period of 23 through 25. And Elaine, on your question regarding digital. I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago or yesterday I considered this one of the most important.
activities and investments that we are making in the company. We are.
On the one hand, we're far along. We've been working on this for a while, but clearly we have a lot to go as well. And most of the work that we are doing is clearly within the run rate, our cap, capex run rate. I don't anticipate any increase.
in capital as a result of that. If anything, a lot of the work that should start sunsetting by the end of 24 in terms of moving our infrastructure to the cloud will start to dissipate and that'll create even more capacity within the existing spend level for digital.
Thank you. That's very helpful.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ravi Shankar from Morgan Stanley . Your line is live.
Thank you, good morning everyone. Glenn, you commented on the fall. Any chance you can expand on those comments a little bit more, especially US domestic? You spoke about corporate a little bit. I think most folks are focused on what the demand looks like beyond the summer, which is obviously very strong right now.
Right, you know, we see a strong demand both domestically and internationally as far as we can see. And what we need in our polity a second is to have the pro
And we can see internationally probably to the end of summer iota in October and see very, very strong results there. And domestically, we've seen some very positive trends. I think that was one of our increases in the June quarter we talked about in the earnings. And we've seen some inflection in terms of closing bill where it's starting to look better as we move.
very, very impressive, but I think, you know, what's the next bar here? What's the next step? Are you looking at $10? And obviously, you just had to give us kind of the long-term outlook at the beyond analyst day in terms of the initiatives out there. But what are we thinking in terms of kind of financial targets the long term?
Hi, Robbie, you know, we're going to. We need to get to 7 dollars 1st before we talk about what's next and really halfway through a 3 year plan. Yeah. Just increase the current the current year guide. We will most likely some point next year, hopefully the 1st, half of the year.
have our updated long-term plan conversation where we can talk about where we see the long-term financial targets for the company going. But right now we wanna focus on doing a very busy part of the year. We wanna deliver a great operation for our customers. And we'll talk more over the course of the next 12 months too.
how far the EPS can get. It's a very high quality problem to have. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Katie O'Brien from Goldman Sachs. Your line is live.
Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for the time. So yesterday we had a pretty sizable month over a month step down in airfare CPI. I did some quick analysis that shows that that data isn't very correlated to the industry's rise or yield historically, but it doesn't feel quite right to fully ignore a data point like that. I guess did you see anything similar to that step down in your own data, maybe on domestic or...
sample of a sample and so we're not seeing the same and you know I
It's a different data point than what we have and what we're seeing. So I'll leave it to that. If you want the definition, which I think explains why there may be a big variance to what you're seeing, we can forward that to you. Yeah.
You know, one thing for the call, because I know a lot of people have this question.
Just think about where we were last May and June .
Demand had just turned turned on in a crazy hot way supply was really low people didn't care Where they were going or how much they spent they just wanted to go someplace and we were seeing fares of 30 40 50 percent And a lot of particularly a lot of the domestic markets where they could travel to
That's obviously not sustainable and that's the comp set that you attend the data that's being compared to as well So we're now at a much more normalized level of stability in the fair environment particularly domestically and Yeah, I think that it's a really poor comparison to try to try to draw what that what that once you
half of the year, but if your free cash flow was to come in better, would there be upside to that $4 billion plus debt pay down you spoke to? Is that at all capped by your level of prepayable debt or you're happy to pay prepayment penalties that means you take down that interest cost burden faster and de-risk the business? Thanks for all the time. Certainly. As we've talked about, paying down debt is a priority here.
generating cash, paying down debt. The two, hand-to-hand, any additional cash that we generate, we certainly would pay down debt with it. I think you'll see us, even in the back half of this year, we will be over that $4 billion that I talked about of gross debt pay down. And our team's been, Ken and the team out there have been really good about doing it. It's what we've done year to date, we've done it.
Yeah, hey, I just want to touch back on, I think, Ed, you talked about summer being strong, maybe Glenn also added to it, for international, not summer, but international being strong, extending into the fall. And I did note that for many of your seasonal European markets, it does look like you've extended the season into November , December , and instead of restarting in April and May, it seems like they're coming back in early March, maybe even February .
Is there a secular shift that is going on here where you're just picking up more and more international, it's a longer season, maybe these markets are becoming more mature on one hand? And my follow up would be when you look at your domestic, what's the load factor points that are being driven by international? Is it five points of load, eight points of load factor?
and we're adjusting that. I think what we want to accomplish for most of our markets is at least a full season of summer aorta, which is, of course, W
So you've seen a lot of extensions into that period.
So you've seen a lot of extensions into that period.
We've seen travel patterns emerging post-pandemic to Europe that tend to see that southern Europe has a longer season than it has had historically, and so we're taking advantage of that, while northern Europe does have a much shorter season. And so trying to work both of those issues to create a network that produces the best returns on a year-round basis.
We have a lot of improvement. We're going to have a really great summer, and our goal is to have a great winter as well. That's what we're going to do.
And on the domestic portion of International Journey, I think in the last call we said it was about 10, and I think that's about where it's staying. And again, that depends whether you call domestic portion of International Journey to the long hauls or to the short haul, including the Caribbean and Mexico. And so the number I'm giving you includes the Caribbean and Mexico, which is really part of North America. If you...
took the truly long pulse out of that it would be a lower number.
truly long haul side of that it would be a lower number. Okay.
lower number. Okay. Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Sheila from Jeffries. Your line is live. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Greg, on profitability, you raised the margin guidance for the year for 12% for 2023. That implies 100 basis points of improvement in the second half.
How much of that is coming from fuel and non-fuel costs? You mentioned that down to one to three points. Is it all just cost benefits, or are you assuming some continued yield stress in the Atlantic like we were just talking about and benefit from domestic hub restoration? Yeah, when you think about it, first half to second half, a couple of things to think about. Certainly not.
but you have a fourth quarter versus a first quarter performance in that half performance. And when you put all that together, that also drives that margin performance of first half versus second half.
Great, thank you. And then if I could just ask a follow-up on PASH. The CapEx's assumption, does it still remain 5.5 and should we think about the skyline at 43 aircraft for the year, given you mentioned some delivery constraints?
Yes, we've held our, even as we updated our free cash flow for the year from two to three, we've held our CapEx at five and a half. We're still holding right around that 42, 43 aircrafts for the year. That can always move around as it has the year by a few.
Yes, we've held our, even as we updated our free cash flow for the year from two to three, we've held our CapEx at five and a half. We're still holding right around that 42, 43 aircraft for the year. That can always move around as it has a year by a few. Thank you.
Even as we updated our pre-cash flow for the year from two to three, we've held our capex at five and a half. We're still holding right around that 42, 43 aircrafts for the year. That can always move around as it has a year by a few. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Scott Group from Wolf. Your line is live.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Glenn, you said that the third quarter RASM would have been in line with seasonality if you make a few adjustments. Can you just maybe give a little bit of color on the adjustments you're sort of thinking about? And then just, I don't know if I heard it yet, so maybe just share domestic versus international RASM expectations for the third quarter. Have a great week.
Yeah, on the seasonality between 2Q and 3Q, we had some of the days shift. The outbound 4th of July was in 2Q, which are some of the best days of the summer as we pointed out in this. So if you take that and adjust for that, we're about a point off into the normal and hopefully we can make that point up in quarter, but if you look back to last year...
I think that's the more important comp when you see the deceleration from one to midpoint of minus three. Last year's international razzum went between 2q and 3q was up 16 points as the restrictions travel restrictions went off in 2q. So that had that big surge in demand on a limited capacity last year.
So I think we're really looking at a 2Q to 3Q that's really right in line with what we think the seasonal norms are.
Okay, helpful. And then, Dan, I don't know if I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but when I think about the inflection and chasm in the back half this year, that's still with a pilot deal. So, as we look ahead to next year, I know you've already set down those single digits, but am I wrong in thinking that…
The first half is going to be better than that. Well, the pilot deal you have...
is going to be better than that? Well, the pilot deal you have throughout this year.
And as we've talked about, you have it in every quarter, and it's about four points along with the wage increase overall for the entire Delta workforce that came through for the year. When you think about next year. And you think about what we talked about is low single digits.
Really, we've out there with mid single digit capacity growth. Uh, you get that benefit and then as you get into the scale and efficiency and rebuild, that is another element that will benefit from. So we get efficiency, you won't have to repeat the rebuild that we had. This year and and then.
The offset to that is the continued movement as it relates to a couple of points when you think about pilots and wages in the next year. And that's what gets you to low single digits is the general framework associated with the drivers there.
Okay all right, Thank you guysthank you. Your next question is coming from Jamie Baker. From JP Morgan, your line is live.
Hey, good morning. So Glenn, does your third quarter razzm guide assume any share pickup at the expense of any competitors that may be alternating their distribution strategy or rethinking their Northeast footprint?
You know There's two questions in there and the first question is I think our third quarter is based on what we see in the second quarter and moving forward and there haven't been any changes to Distribution strategies in in the quarter. So I'd say it's what we see today just moving forward from there and on the the
cessation of the NEA. Listen, we compete well in New York. We've had a long, long history of competing well in New York and we're really confident how that as it evolves that we'll be able to continue to win in New York, which has been our long-term strategy for 10 years and we're not deviating from that.
And on the corporate survey work, any shifts in how individual sectors are responding? For example, is the messaging from your tech customers unchanged from what it's been? We pointed out that the laggards are the ones that are most encouraged.
people trying to get back into the corporations trying to get people back in the office. I think that's a great constructive backdrop for us as we head into the fall and the post-Labor Day period. That's great. One additional comment there. All these comparisons in terms of corporate travel.
unfortunately are still all made to 2019 and we lose sight of the fact that our economy is 20% plus or minus larger than it was in 2019 so what you're talking about actually there is a lot of room to improve
for corporate America on travel. And I think that's part of the underpinning why we think you're gonna continue to see some steady improvement here this fall. And you're hearing it from the travel managers as well. Good, we happen to agree. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Connor Cunningham from Melius Research.
We have a continuous, slow and steady build in our guide. If it was to accelerate beyond what it's been doing, that would be upside.
Okay, that's helpful. And then I just on the domestic rasm, I think you guys are going to be one of the best in the industry if not the best. I was just curious if you could unpack what what was the outperformance? Is that purely just your your core hub rebuild and coastal investments kind of coming in at higher unit revenues? Just trying to understand what maybe back to Katie's question, like the differences between in terms of representational reporting.
you know, regular economy seats and what Delta kind of offers out there. Thank you.
Well, I think we said that it's been continuing to be led by premium products and services. And our domestic rebuild has, as we've spoken about earlier, initially focused on the coastal gateways and now, right now, moving back into the core. And so we have a lapping of the investments we've made in the coastal gateways.
coming out of COVID now producing very good returns for us as well as the investments in the core, which of course come in at higher unit revenues. So I think it's a combination of those two factors moving together.
So they're now producing very good returns for us, as well as their investments in the core, which of course come in at higher unit revenues. So I think it's a combination of those two factors moving together.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Safi Sith from Raymond James. Your line is live.
Hey good morning. Just curious on the international capacity, you know it's been growing at a faster pace than domestic given that that's where the restoration has been to a greater degree. I was curious how long you expect international capacity to growth to kind of continue to outpace domestic here? Well as capacity trends down as we have...
international. Got it. And if I might just ask on the Latin entity, Glenn, could you provide a little bit more color on what you're seeing, especially broken up between kind of near international, which recovered first in kind of the South America.
Got it. And if I might just ask on the Latin entity, Glenn, could you provide a little bit more color on what you're seeing, especially broken out between kind of near international, which recovered first in the South America market?
Yeah, of course we've been really thrilled with the results with LATAM and the improvements in our South America revenue base. So South America is moving at a great clip and again the short and medium haul Latin American markets were some of the first to recover.
and they're still continuing to be strong, but not posting those great, the giant gains they did in the early part of the recovery. Thanks, Tom. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Dwayne Finningworth from Evercore ISI. Your line is live.
Hey, good morning and congrats on these strong results. On your transatlantic JV, I just wondered if there's any new approaches, maybe any learnings through the pandemic that will change the way you operate going forward versus maybe what you've done in the past, how much each side flies, things like that.
You know, we have a great transatlantic joint venture. It was the first one and the most integrated, and one that we think has huge customer benefits. And it's always evolving. And that's the great, and we have great partners that want it to evolve. So we're continuing evaluating how we approach the marketplace together. You've seen some swaps in the fall from things that we have flown to the things that our partners are
step down a little bit again in September , which seems to make some sense. Not all your peers are kind of taking that approach. In some cases, August is bigger than July , et cetera. So is this just getting back to kind of your view on normal seasonality, or is this more operationally driven?
No, absolutely it's more normal seasonality of course in the south you have the schools going back earlier and earlier this year for example schools go back in Georgia the first of August .
And so we're through the summer travel period in the south, where the north tends to go back after Labor Day. So if you look more granularly, you'd see the southern, the Atlanta hub in the south trends down in the second half of August . And we keep the northern tier operating a little bit longer and then pull that down after Labor Day.
We are actually getting much more back to where we want to be as we say we come out of restoration to a much more normal seasonality. That's helpful. Thank you. We'll now go to our final analyst question.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brandon Oglinski from Barclays. Your line is live. Hey, thanks for letting me ask one here. I guess, and I know we're not guiding into 4Q here, but implied revenue in 4Q maybe feels a little bit softer than 3Q for the full year. I'm just giving you a full year guidance. Sorry.
Is that conservatism around the off peak periods like we were talking about back in 1Q with bookings that have just changed and the lack of canceled fees that have changed consumer behavior? I just think we know the least about 4Q right now. So as we get towards the end of this quarter, I think we will have a much better view that we can share with you on the October call.
Okay, I appreciate that. But I guess can you talk maybe structurally, how are you approaching the off-peak period differently than earlier this year? I think what we have left to go in the year is we have to get through Labor Day, of course, and I think we have good visibility through Labor Day. Then we have October , which is historically a very strong travel month for business, so we'll see how that unfolds. And then we have the holidays, which are the peak holidays.
Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you. That will wrap up the analyst portion of the call. I'll now turn it over to Tim Mapes to start the media questions. Thank you, Julie. Matthew, if you would, please just remind the members of the media about queuing up for the call, and we'll jump in with members of the media. Certainly. At this time, we'll be conducting a Q&A session for media questions.
If you have any questions or comments, please press star then 1 on your phone.
press star then 1 on your phone. Please hold Wallypole for questions.
Thank you. Your first question is coming from Allison Cider from Wall Street Journal. Your line is live. Yes Shall we?
Hey, thanks so much. I wanted to ask about Viasat yesterday. I reported it had a deployment issue with its recently watched satellite. I was curious if that.
causes any potential problems for Delta's free Wi-Fi plans, either for the current, what's currently in place or for the future rollouts, and if you have to consider any kind of alternative.
Hi, Ali. Obviously, we were disappointed as biased as it was with the news yesterday, but we're committed long term and they will get through this. We see no meaningful impact to where we stand currently with our domestic capacity and we're working closely with them to make sure that domestic performance maintains.
what we've been seeing, which has been great. I think if anything, it may cause a delayed rollout on some of the international markets, but it's too early to tell.
Okay, thanks. And I also wanted to see if Delta has any view on some of the proposals that Congress is considering around simulator training counting towards pilot experience hours, if that's something you do favorably or if.
Delta would have any plans to offer a.
a training program of its own if the Senate proposal goes through or how you're thinking about that. Hey Allison, it's Peter. You know, Delta has not weighed in on those particular proposals. We think the way pilots are trained is obviously
incredibly effective and it's important to maintain those type of training requirements.
Thank you. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Leslie Joseph from CNBC. Your line is live.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Also, wondering if Delta has any view on raising the pilot age potentially to 67, if not beyond that at some point. And then also with the affirmative action ruling from last month, is Delta reviewing or looking at its current DEI policies and expecting any changes that have to make.
and observe and watch how that discussion unfolds. Peter, we'll touch on the affirmative action. Yeah, hello, Leslie. I will tell you at Delta, we continue to be fully committed to our DE&I objectives. And also we don't have an affirmative action program at Delta, we always hire the very best.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Mary Schlangenstein from Bloomberg News. Your line is live.
Hi, good morning, thank you. With your expectation that the corporate travel recovery is going to slowly continue during the fall, will that step up enough that it'll make up for any decline in leisure travel after schools return or do you not expect to see that historical dip in leisure travel this fall?
Well, I just give you a view of what we do see because domestic demands, of course, come a little bit later on, but for international travel post Labor Day, we see very robust leisure demand continuing through the October period. So combine that.
With hopefully, you know, we'll get some upside surprise on the increase in business, but we're not really counting on anything more than what we see today
we'll get some upside surprise on the increase in business, but we're not really counting on anything more than what we see today. Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from David Schlotnick from TPG. Your line is live. Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. I wondered if Delta has any contingency planning or views surrounding the legislation potentially affecting credit card.
fees and charges that would probably have a significant impact on your AmEx revenue. Are you planning for if that works its way through or how to make up for that or anything else? Thanks very much. Hey David, it's Peter. Obviously that's legislation that we're watching carefully and if in fact it becomes the law we will...
we will adjust accordingly, but we don't really think it has a good opportunity to be ultimately signed into law.
Thank you. Thank you, David. Matthew, I think that will wrap it up for questions from members of the media. All right. Thank you everyone for joining us and I hope you have a great rest of your summer and we'll talk to you in October .
Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation today.
Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation today.