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spk13: Good morning. My name is Anthony. I would like to welcome everyone to the JetBlue Airways Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to JetBlue's Director of Investor Relations, Joe Caiado. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thanks, Anthony. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. This morning, we issued our earnings release and a presentation that we'll reference during this call. All of those documents are available on our website at investor.jetblue.com and have been filed with the SEC. In New York, to discuss our results are Robin Hayes, our Chief Executive Officer, Joanna Garrity, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Ursula Hurley, our Chief Financial Officer. And also joining us for Q&A are Dave Clark, Head of Revenue and Planning, and Andres Berry, President of JetBlue Travel Products. This morning's call includes forward-looking statements about future events. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our most recent earnings release and our most recent Form 10Q or 10K for a more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements, including, among others, the COVID-19 pandemic, fuel availability and pricing, the outcome of the lawsuit filed by the DOJ related to our Northeast Alliance, the occurrence of any circumstances that could give rise to the right of JetBlue or Spirit Airlines or both to terminate the merger agreement, failure to obtain applicable regulatory approval in a timely manner or otherwise, and the potential financial consequences thereof, failure to satisfy other closing conditions or failure of the parties to consummate the transaction, and the possibility that JetBlue may be unable to achieve expected synergies and operating efficiencies within the expected timeframes or at all, and to successfully integrate SPIRITS operations with those of JetBlue. The statements made during this call are made only as of the date of the call, and we undertake no obligation to update the information. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Also, during the course of our call, we may discuss several non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures, please refer to the tables at the end of our earnings release, a copy of which is available on our website. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Robin Hayes, JetBlue CEO.
spk00: Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our thoughts are with all of those affected by the recent hurricanes in the Southeast and the Caribbean, including many of our crew members, customers, and their loved ones. As always, supporting our crew members and the communities is a top priority after devastating events like these, And we know it's going to be a long road to recovery for several impacted regions. JetBlue is working with nonprofit partners such as World Central Kitchen to ship supplies and assist with relief efforts. And alongside our JetBlue crew member crisis fund, we're working to provide support for our crew members who were hardest hit. And we're going to stay with them every step of the way. I'd like to thank our more than 24,000 crew members for their dedication, patience, and service. I am always amazed at how our crew members step up in these challenging times to care for each other and the communities we serve, prioritizing safety above all else. Our crew members also help deliver another record quarter of revenue, resulting in our first quarterly profit since the start of the pandemic. Despite the macroeconomic uncertainty, we're building momentum in the second half of the year, and I'm confident that we're on a path to continue increasing our margins as we bring our low fare, award-winning JetBlue experience to more customers. Let's now turn to our quarterly results on slide four of the deck. For the third quarter, we reported an adjusted pre-tax income of $118 million adjusted pre-tax margin of 4.6 percent and an adjusted earnings per share of 21 cents the changes we made earlier this year to enhance operational resourcing and the resilience of our schedule resulted in strong operational performance over the summer peak despite significant weather and air traffic control challenges and record customer demand we've made excellent strides on hiring And we're now at a point where we believe we are appropriately resourced from a staffing perspective, which in turn should translate to improved productivity. Looking ahead, we expect our momentum to continue through to another solid quarter of mid-single digit pre-tax margins in the fourth quarter. We'll look to build margins further in 2023 as we continue to restore our pre-pandemic earnings power. We continue to see a very healthy revenue environment with no signs of slowing demand for air travel. Moving now to slide five. Our teams are diligently working on the strategic initiatives driving our earnings recovery and enhancing our business for the long term. We're fortifying our unique business model to more effectively compete with entrenched big four carriers and deliver significant consumer benefits as we continue to disrupt the market. It starts with our network. Our Northeast Alliance, which has been up and running for more than a year and a half, is fundamentally about growing capacity in consumer choice, and it has promoted competition in both New York and Boston. By all measures, JetBlue and American are delivering substantial consumer benefits with the launch of dozens of new routes, increased frequencies on over 100 additional routes, an improved schedule offering, and reciprocal frequent flyer benefits for our customers. Again, this growth would not be possible without the NEA, and consumers are further benefiting from the clear competitive response that we have stimulated. The NEA is doing what it's set out to do, giving consumers more choice and better value, and we look forward to continuing to expand these benefits. Outside of the NEA, I'm extremely pleased with the recent Spirit shareholder approval for our combination, which will create value for all of our stakeholders. Together, we'll build a low fare challenger to the dominant Big Four airlines on a national scale and expand our compelling combination of award-winning service and low fares to more customers across more destinations. On the transatlantic front, by the end of this week, we'll offer five daily flights between the Northeast and London. And we look forward to taking delivery of a handful of Airbus 321LR aircraft next year to support our expansion to Europe, notwithstanding some modest delivery delays. Stay tuned for an announcement in the near future. Customer engagement with JetBlue remains at record levels, and we continue to see healthy spend on our co-branded credit cards. Our loyalty program is producing record cash flows, which is a testament to our customer value proposition. Separately, our JetBlue travel product subsidiary continues to innovate with the launch of Troop, a free group planning app to help groups decide when to travel, where to go, and what to do, building on efforts to make the travel experience more seamless. JetBlue Travel Products is on track to generate close to $100 million of EBIT this year, compared to $15 million in 2019. We also continue to make great progress on the structural cost program we announced last quarter, which Ursula will discuss shortly in more detail. We made further progress on the ESG front with an agreement to purchase 25 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel starting in 2027 from Air Company, one of the JetBlue Ventures investments. We're committed to growing and diversifying our SAF supply as we progress towards our goal of converting 10% of our jet fuel usage to SAF by 2030. We also applaud the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, for endorsing a net zero by 2050 goal for international aviation emissions. an important milestone that US Airlines had already voluntarily committed to. We expect this will continue to drive the investments and technological innovation needed to enable our industry to continue to grow sustainably. I'll close with another huge thank you to our crew members. Thank you for all of your hard work, your patience. We're building strong momentum and I'm excited about the journey that lies ahead. With that, over to you, Joanna.
spk09: Thank you, Robin. I'd like to also add my thanks to our fantastic team for their dedication in delivering for our customers through a very challenging summer and the most recent hurricanes. I'm extremely proud of how they've stepped up to support each other and our impacted communities as we recover from the recent storms. Turning to capacity on slide seven. In the third quarter of 2022, our capacity was down a half a percent year over three, compared with our most recent guidance for flat capacity. Hurricanes Fiona and Ian impacted our flown capacity by roughly seven tenths of a point. Throughout the quarter, our teams executed well, particularly in the context of significant ATC constraints, resulting in a strong completion factor. For the fourth quarter, we expect capacity to be up one to four percent year over three, a modest sequential step up versus the third quarter. full-year 2022 capacity growth is now expected to be up 0% to 2% year over three. Looking ahead, we expect the aviation ecosystem to continue to remain fragile, given supply chain challenges and ATC staffing headwinds. Therefore, we are maintaining a continued bias towards more conservative planning assumptions in the medium term, such as carrying higher levels of reserves versus 2019, to ensure that we are set up for operational success. During the third quarter, we expanded our transatlantic service with new daily service between Boston and London, and we plan to add a third frequency between JFK and London later this week. As we think about our growth plans for 2023, we expect to return to our historical growth rate of mid to high single digit growth year over year. As Robin mentioned, we will soon be announcing our next European destination as we build even more relevance in our largest northeast focus cities. And we also expect to grow our other focus cities as we take delivery of next-generation Airbus 220s and 321neo aircraft and replace our older E190s. Turning to slide eight. In the third quarter, we delivered the highest quarterly revenue result in JetBlue's history. Our revenue per available seat mile increased 23.4% year over three at the high end of our original expectations. Hurricane Ian was a net neutral impact to our unit revenues in the third quarter, as revenue was offset by reduced capacity. Throughout the quarter, we saw strong leisure and VFR demand trends. We were particularly pleased to see load factor in the off-peak month of September increase approximately three points above 2019 levels. We see these positive trends continuing here in the fourth quarter, and we are confident strong demand will continue through the upcoming holiday peaks. As a further proof point, ancillary revenue per customer grew over 50% year over three in the third quarter, as our varied product offerings and low prices continue to resonate extremely well with our customers. For the fourth quarter, we expect unit revenue to increase between 15% and 19% year over three. This includes a five-point impact from hurricanes Fiona and Ian, the placement of the holidays this year, and tough loyalty comps. Our strong revenue performance continues to be bolstered by our commercial initiatives. We've unlocked immense consumer benefits through our Northeast Alliance, which is rooted in providing customers with more choice as a true third competitor in the Northeast. Crucially, we're growing supply in the Northeast, with NEA growth well outpacing overall domestic industry capacity, launching due destinations, adding flights to others, enhancing our schedules, and allowing our loyalty customers the ability to benefit from two different programs. In addition, we've seen the entrenched carriers respond by matching our new destinations as well as expanding their own service, boosting competition in the region, and benefiting consumers. The Northeast Alliance also enables JetBlue to provide another compelling option for business travelers with the best network and schedules in the region. We were pleased to see business travel step up again post-Labor Day, following the typical summer lull in July and August. and continue to recover towards pre-pandemic levels. Our contracted corporate revenue bookings are now roughly 90% recovered, compared with roughly 80% at the end of the second quarter, aided by our Northeast Alliance, which is helping us capture a greater share of corporate customers in the Northeast, which has yet to be fully recovered. On the loyalty front, I'm pleased to see program engagement at record highs, as evidenced by spend growth persistently well above pre-pandemic levels. Last month, we hit a new record in co-brand acquisitions, and our portfolio of accounts is set to expand by over 25% year over year. As a testament to the outstanding traction we've made in closing the revenue gap to peers, loyalty revenue now represents roughly 10% of our total revenue, compared to approximately 7% in 2019. As I've said before, we are in the early innings of the multi-year evolution of our loyalty program. and we could not be more excited for its growth. Before closing, I would like to highlight that although we are seeing no indications of any type of drop-off in air travel demand, we are keeping a very close eye on the macroeconomic environment. As we look to 2023, we take comfort in the fact that the US economy is much larger than it was prior to the pandemic, while industry capacity is still below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that our industry's experience with a potential 2023 economic downturn could look quite different than historical downturns. For JetBlue specifically, our business model has evolved significantly since the last downturn, as we have built a more segmented strategy that appeals to a wide spectrum of customers. Our ancillary revenue base has also grown and proved stable even through the pandemic. And of course, capacity is the biggest lever we have. Thank you again to our crew members for all of the hard work during an exceptionally busy summer and for taking care of our customers and each other. Now, I'll turn the call over to you, Ursula.
spk12: Thank you, Joanna. I'd also like to thank our incredible crew members for always stepping up to tackle the numerous challenges that arise in our industry and safely delivering the JetBlue experience for all our customers through it all. Despite all of the challenges, from extreme weather events to external staffing pressures to record fuel prices, we've remained focused on what we can control, and we are taking action to forge a strong cost trajectory that supports our margin expansion and value creation over the long term. I'll start on slide 11 with a brief overview of our financial results for the quarter. Revenue per available seat mile was up 23.4% year over three. Cost per available seat mile was up 32.4% year over three. Chasm, excluding fuel and special items, was up 16.3% year over three, and gap earnings per share was 18 cents, and adjusted earnings per share was 21 cents. I'm very proud of the team's execution in delivering a profitable third quarter, a very important milestone for us. We exceeded our original revenue guidance, maintained CASMX fuel in line with our initial outlook despite the impact from hurricanes and continued pressure tied to ATC staffing challenges, and we delivered a solid pre-tax margin result in our first quarter of profitability since the pandemic. We've overcome many hurdles in our path, improved our operational performance, generated record revenue, and laid plans to improve our cost trajectory. Looking ahead, we expect to build on our momentum and deliver another profitable quarter in Q4. Turning to slide 12. During the third quarter, Chasm X Fuel increased 16.3% versus 2019. The impact from the hurricanes was roughly one point to Chasm X in the third quarter. In addition, we continued to build more resiliency into the operation, which pressured Chasm. Separately, ongoing spirit-related transaction expenses combined with E-190 fleet transition costs were approximately $13 million in the third quarter, which we exclude from Chasm X fuel. For the fourth quarter, We are forecasting CASMX fuel to increase 8.5% to 10.5%. The year over three growth rate in CASMX fuel is improving by seven points sequentially from Q3 to Q4, or five points after adjusting for capacity, as we peel back some of the operational investments from the summer while maintaining a conservative approach to planning as we enter 2023. We're also benefiting from early progress on our structural cost program and savings from early E-190 retirements. We're tightening our full year 2022 CASMx fuel forecast to an increase of 13 to 14% year over three versus our prior guidance of an 11 to 14% increase. Turning to slide 13. Last quarter, we announced two initiatives designed to help us deliver a flattish unit cost trajectory. First, our structural cost program, which we expect to drive $150 to $200 million of cost reductions through 2024. And secondly, the acceleration of our E-190 retirement. Today, we're deep into our annual planning cycle, and as we look ahead to 2023, We remain committed to keeping our non-fuel unit costs flat or better year over year in support of our continued margin recovery. You'll recall that next year we're facing several cost headwinds as we manage through the timing of a number of expensive heavy maintenance visits as well as airport cost pressures related to upgrading to new terminals across our network. These major headwinds are in part what the new structural cost program was envisioned to help offset, in addition to the three years of inflationary pressures currently in the cost base. We're driving a strong sequential improvement in ex-fuel unit costs in the fourth quarter, with some benefit from maintenance timing, but most importantly due to the early returns we're seeing from our new structural cost program. Specifically, We're gaining traction with our enterprise planning effort, producing crew efficiencies and improvements in soft time without sacrificing operability, and with our maintenance optimization initiative, as we work to minimize the investment in some of our older engines in our fleet. In addition, we're seeing savings from the accelerated retirement of our ERUN 90 fleet, having already parked five of these aircraft to date. Turning to the balance sheet on slide 14. In the third quarter, we paid down $66 million of debt, funded $260 million in capital expenditures, and paid a $25 million break fee related to the Spirit transaction. At the end of September, our adjusted debt to cap was 53%, and we closed the quarter with liquidity of $2.3 billion, or 28% of 2019 revenue. This excludes our revolving credit facility, which we've recently increased to $600 million, ensuring JetBlue has the flexibility to navigate an uncertain environment. Separately, we've also layered on fuel hedges for roughly 27% of our consumption for Q4 to protect against oil exceeding $100 a barrel. We view these hedges as a form of insurance to help mitigate financial risk and we'll continue to monitor the market regularly to help de-risk our earnings profile. Our full year 2022 CapEx forecast remains unchanged at approximately $1 billion. Looking ahead to 2023, we expect our CapEx to increase consistent with our order book as we work through renewing our fleet over the next several years. While we recognize that aircraft deliveries are a moving target given OEM production challenges and delays, we believe our mid to high single-digit growth target next year is achievable based on what we know today. As Robin mentioned, we're thrilled that Spirit shareholders overwhelmingly voted for our proposed transaction with Spirit last week. which triggered the prepayment of $272 million to Spirit shareholders here in the fourth quarter. We're making good progress on the regulatory front, and we expect to receive regulatory approval and close the transaction by the first half of 2024. Finally, our balance sheet today remains one of the strongest in the industry, enabling us to pursue the acquisition of Spirit to create a national low fare challenger to the big four. Post-closing, we expect a very manageable leverage position and we expect the enhanced pro forma earnings and cash flow generation to help us quickly de-lever again. To close, I'd like to thank our teams once again for taking care of all of our stakeholders and for helping steer JetBlue towards sustained and growing profitability. With the game-changing moves we've made, including the Northeast Alliance, our evolving loyalty program, our new structural cost program, and a planned combination with SPIRIT, I could not be more excited about our future. We are on the right path to transform our long-term earnings power and create value for all of our stakeholders. With that, we will now take your questions.
spk13: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Savi Sif with Raymond James. You may now go ahead.
spk10: Hey, good morning, everyone. Can I ask if you could provide an update on kind of the staffing levels here in 2022 and what you're seeing in terms of attrition and maybe what your plans are for 2023, given it seems like you're taking maybe two to three times more aircraft in 2023 than you did this year?
spk09: Hey, Savi, thanks for the question. It's Joanna. So in terms of overall staffing, we're pleased with the progress we've made. We're actually seeing, I think, some good normalization of staffing levels overall across most of our work groups. We are also seeing attrition across most of our other work groups slow in the last several months, which is also fantastic. Maybe I'll do a double-click on pilots because I think that's probably where folks want to hear us offer a view or two. So with regard to pilots, we have a very strong pipeline, but we continue to plan for elevated levels of pilot attrition. and for excess reserves so that we can ensure we're protecting the operation during what we believe will continue to be a constrained ATC environment. For 2022, we're tracking to hire close to 1,000 pilots. That number remains largely unchanged for 2023. That is inclusive of attrition. And then obviously, we're in the midst of moving the 190 fleet out, so that also drives some incremental pilots as we transition fleets. So, you know, we think from an opportunity perspective on the cost side, this is where as ATC hopefully over the next year or so begins to normalize and hopefully as attrition begins to normalize, there will be some opportunity here in terms of slowing that hiring pace. But, again, we're on track to hire on the pilot front at least 1,000 for this year and into next.
spk10: that's super helpful collagen thank you jenna and eric maybe just on that if i might uh follow up on your capex comment you're able to provide a little bit more color on capex given i don't think there were as many deliveries this year as next year so do you expect like a big step up or how should we think about the capex sure savvy as as we're all well aware the oems are struggling with challenges in terms of ramp up and manpower and supply chains so
spk12: We've been working hand-in-hand with Airbus on staying close to any delivery delays. As you've seen in our update today, in regards to next year, contractually we're supposed to take 29 deliveries. From a planning assumptions perspective, we're expecting 22. So in terms of CapEx, this year we're expecting a billion dollars. Next year, I think a logical assumption is we'll be anywhere between 1.5 and 2 billion. However, I think this is going to continue to remain fluid as we work with Airbus over the next 18 months or so in managing the delays. I also want to reiterate, even with the planning assumption with the 22 aircraft, we still believe that we can achieve our mid to high single-digit growth rate in 2023. Perfect. Thank you.
spk13: Our next question will come from Scott Group with Wolf Research. You may now go ahead.
spk08: Hey, thanks. Good morning. So the TRASM guidance implies a pretty big drop on an absolute basis. Just any color there, is that just seasonality? You seeing anything in terms, I know you said demand, you're not seeing any changes there, but anything with fares or cancellations, just any color on the sequential drop in TRASM?
spk09: Thanks for the question. So maybe a little color. First and foremost, we're not seeing any cracks in underlying demand. Extremely strong as we step into Q4 across all geographies, led by our VFR markets, followed by Mint and Transcon, all of which are performing very well. We're seeing both positive load factors, positive RASM as well in all of those, and then obviously positive fare. So we're really pleased with the underlying demand environment. What you're seeing from Q3 to Q4 are a few things. I'll flip it to Dave to walk through the specifics, but you're seeing the December holiday shift, specifically with a shorter peak period for that Christmas holiday. You're also seeing a modest impact from hurricanes Fiona, Ian, Puerto Rico, the DR, and Florida. And then you're seeing a comp issue with regard to loyalty. We had a very, very strong LOYALTY NUMBER IN Q4 OF 2019, SO YOU'RE SEEING A SLIGHT DECREASE THERE, BUT LOYALTY, AS WE NOTED IN THE SCRIPT, REMAINS EXTREMELY STRONG IN ABSOLUTE TERMS. SO THERE'S A FIVE-POINT DIFFERENCE, Q3 TO Q4, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, THE DEMAND TRENDS UNDERLYING ALL OF THAT REMAIN EXTREMELY STRONG, JUST THESE THREE ITEMS THAT ARE A BIT OF A PUT AND A TAKE. DAVE, MAYBE YOU WANT TO GIVE A LITTLE COLOR TO THE THREE.
spk14: SURE, AND I THINK YOU COVERED IT WELL. DEMAND VERY STRONG, JUST THREE TRANSITORY ITEMS HERE THAT ARE PUSHING a headwind of about five points for Q4. And they're all roughly the same size in terms of the magnitude. As mentioned, loyalty, some choppiness from 2019. There was some one-timers there in Q4 of 2019, and then just some ongoing choppiness in the sort of ongoing strength as we continue to build our loyalty. But extremely happy with how loyalty is performing. We continue to have very high growth, both on a quarter-over-quarter basis and a year-over-three. So no concerns at all, just a hard crop in 2019. On the holiday placement, I think some other airlines have called this out as well with regards to the weekday placement with Christmas on a Sunday leads to an outbound about three days later than you've had in 2019 given school calendars in the Northeast, which is where the largest chunk of our customers originate from. And then lastly, on the hurricanes, it was actually both Ian and Fiona. Obviously, Fort Myers was the most impacted from a revenue perspective, but we had the opportunity to redeploy some of that capacity for the Q4 peaks. And we did set some capacity for the Trosten Q4. And then Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic did have some lingering effects from Fiona, which passed in late September. The volumes are completely back, but we have seen, especially in Puerto Rico, a lower fare trajectory than we were seeing before the hurricane. It's improving week on week, and Puerto Rico is fully open for business and a great experience for tourists, so no concerns here. But we have seen that fare sort of creep back a little bit each week, but it's still about 10 and 20 points below where it was. So all transitory items and no concern at all with underlying demand.
spk08: Okay. Thanks for the color there. And just secondly, the fuel hedging – Just the rationale on why you're starting it, is it just Q4 or is some of this, are you hedging anything for 23 at this point?
spk12: Thanks for the question, Scott. So we're constantly monitoring the market. Over the last 18 or months or so, it's been pretty costly to enter the hedging market. We saw a window of opportunity a few months back to layer in some hedges to protect against fuel volatility here in the fourth quarter. It's something that we'll continue to monitor going forward. As a reminder, we view fuel hedging as insurance, and we utilize hedging to protect against extreme volatility in oil prices. So as we enter 2023, you can expect us to continue to monitor the market and potentially layer in future hedges.
spk08: But at this point, is there anything for 2023 hedged?
spk12: We do not have any hedges for 2023 at this point.
spk08: Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
spk13: Our next question will come from Jamie Baker with JP Morgan. You may now go ahead.
spk15: Hey, good morning, everybody. And sorry if I missed this. I fell off the line. But when does your locked-in deal financing start? expire. I'm just trying to understand if there's a delay with the deal. You know, at what point would you be exposed to current rates?
spk12: Good morning, Jamie. So the bridge financing that we currently have in place has the current expiration of mid 2024. As a reminder, we're not currently drawn on the bridge. We are paying a small commitment fee for that bridge. And as you recall, when we receive regulatory approval at that point in time, we will look at the potential takeout financing markets. And so I remind everyone the financing markets at that point in time could look very different compared to where we sit today.
spk15: Okay, that's helpful. And then for, excuse me, for 2023 ex-fuel chasm, you know, flat or better, I assume there's no specific allowance in there for any movement on the pilot contract. If I just look at Alaska's fall 2023 rates, looks like it's about 12% higher than your current rates, recognizing that, you know, other deals may be struck between now and then.
spk12: So, our flat to better CASM ex-fuel guidance for next year does not, for planning purposes, does not assume any change to our current CBA. Unlike a lot of the contracts that are currently open, ours actually just opened. We are at the negotiation table working through the complexity of a potential update to the CBA. And so for a planning perspective, as of right now, we're assuming no changes to the current CBA for next year.
spk15: Got it. Okay, thank you very much.
spk13: Our next question will come from Andrew DeDora with Bank of America. You may now go ahead.
spk05: Hey, good morning, everyone. Just a follow-up to that last question. Does your 2024 chasm assumption assume any change in the CBA?
spk12: So we haven't provided any chasm at fuel guidance yet for 2024.
spk05: Okay, I thought the Flattish, I thought in the presentation said Flattish Casamex Fuel through 2024, so I was just wondering if there was anything in pilots for two years out.
spk12: Got it. So our structural cost program, we've committed as a result of the structural cost program, our intent is to deliver Flattish Casamex Fuel over the next multi-year period. So as I mentioned previously, 2023 does not include a change to the CPA. And in addition to that, we have not yet provided 2024 guidance. But our goal is to get back to that flattish over a multi-year period.
spk05: Got it. Robin, just strategically, how do you think the competitive dynamics change on the transatlantic over the next several years. I ask because I think the CEO of the USULCC said that he's considering transatlantic flights as the XLR is delivered. I would think other ULCCs may do the same. Just curious to get your thoughts on how you think the transatlantic evolves here.
spk00: No. I think certainly I think the first thing to say that we are a relatively small paleo on the transatlantic. I mean, we are pleased to be starting our fifth flight, but as you know, that represents a very tiny percent of the market and probably around two to 3% of our ASMs in total. You know, we see an opportunity out of New York and Boston to fly to a number of European markets and we're constantly progressing with those plans. You know, when I think about the transatlantic, historically, it's always had a mix of legacy and low-cost carriers. And so, you know, I think that's going to continue. I mean, we saw with Norwegian, you know, a large number of low-cost carrier seats come out the market. We've seen a new entrant called Norse there. And I think you're going to continue to see that. But what we believe with the LR and the XLR is we have the right airplane to serve these markets and carrying our mix of both low-cost premium travel you know because what we're doing with our transatlantic mint product is appealing to a segment that has been grossly overcharged and gouged by legacy carriers for many years whilst also making a competitive offering for our core or coach customers which includes a combination of low fare and a great product we think that's a great niche we think that's a niche that most customers want to be in and so we feel very confident that we have the right plan to continue to serve these this market that's great thank you for your thoughts
spk13: Our next question will come from Connor Cunningham with Milius Research. You may now go ahead.
spk06: Hey, everyone. Thank you. When you think about 2023, what do you think is the best opportunity for outsized revenue production? Like, so historically, I think pre-pandemic, you would think that there's a bunch of levers that would generate above average unit revenue performance. Just curious if there's anything else that's out there that could, you know, juice those numbers higher. And I know you spoke to loyalty, but is there Anything else that you're thinking about into next year?
spk14: Thanks, Connor. This is Dave. I'll take that one. As we look ahead to revenue levers for next year, a lot of it is the continued strong performance of the initiatives that we've already outlined, things like the very strong growth we're seeing in loyalty as well as in JetBlue travel products. I do want to go deeper on a couple of them, though, that we haven't talked about yet. So one is our customer segmentation strategy, which has really seen excellent buy-up with customers choosing premium leisure products. Things like Mint is having a RASM improvement about 10 points better than the Core system. And you'll see next year all of our Airbus 320 family deliveries will come with the Mint configuration, given the strength we've been seeing there. But also within the Core cabin, seeing very strong buy-up numbers to our Blue and our Blue Extra Fare. It's now well above 50%, which is really strong and has made a lot of progress the last year or two, so very pleased there. And then secondly, the Northeast Alliance, we're thrilled to be growing this area, to be offering more choices to customers and more low fares, and we're seeing our customer response there really pick up. So, for example, in the third quarter, our revenues and profit margins in the NEA accelerated more quickly than the rest of our network. We're seeing really good co-chair growth quarter over quarter and remain above our targets there. And then the corporate response is really improving. As our seamlessness continues to improve and our loyalty benefits roll out, we're seeing more corporations booking the co-chair. We're seeing some additional accounts signed because of the NEA. And then lastly, and this really points to the future stickiness, our co-brand card account growth in the NEA geographies has been faster and greater than the non-NEA geographies. We think really continuing to execute and ramp up these revenue initiatives that we've been speaking of should help give us a good tailwind as we go through 2023.
spk06: Okay, that's helpful. And then on the buckets of your structural cost program, I'm just curious on what's taken hold a lot quicker than you would have expected, and then maybe what's your biggest focus into next year as we start to work through that. Thank you again.
spk12: Thanks for the question. So we've started to see meaningful progress in our enterprise planning. And as a reminder, what we're doing here is optimizing how we're building schedules around our existing work rules. And we're planning smarter and we're building more resilient pairings. We're collectively identifying any hidden inefficiencies and we're reducing structural operability risks. So in the sequential improvement between Q3 and Q4, we've actually seen a point of improvement associated with our enterprise planning work. So that is going to continue to ramp up as we enter next year. In addition to that, we're also going to make meaningful progress on our maintenance opportunities entering next year. So we moved to a phase in which we're retiring airplanes, and so we've strategically been making decisions on what level of investments we do or do not make in certain airframes and engines. So next year you will continue to see enterprise planning benefits as well as maintenance benefits. In addition to that, as I mentioned in my remarks, we have actually started the retirement of our E190 airplanes. So we actually have a point of savings, sequential savings between Q3 and Q4 associated with that, and that will continue to ramp up. So as a reminder, in 2023, we've assumed the structural cost program will deliver between $60 and $80 million, and the E-190 retirements will drive $45 million of savings next year. I want to reiterate, in terms of structural costs, those are structural savings that will carry through. In regards to the E-190 retirement, think of these as one-time cost avoidance items. So the $75 million isn't necessarily run rate, but it's one-time savings that will be achieved over the next two years.
spk08: Great. Appreciate it. Thank you.
spk13: Our next question will come from Duane Fenningworth with Evercore ISI. You may now go ahead.
spk16: Hey, thanks. So I think a piece of the CASM guidance improvement sequentially is peeling back on reliability investments that you made over the summer. I wondered if you could just expand on that a little bit. What specifically are you kind of loosening and what are you seeing that kind of gives you confidence to do that? Is it really just a function of it's kind of a less peaky time and there's more kind of slack in the system which enables you to do it?
spk12: Thanks, Dwayne. So between Q3 and Q4, we are peeling back 2.5 points of summer investments, and the majority of that is related to internal and external labor. As you recall, we are operating in somewhat of a challenging environment throughout the network given ATC delays. And so we naturally built a level of resiliency into our planning around labor to ensure that we can deliver and operate. So Joanna, I don't know if you have anything else to add.
spk09: Yeah, a couple of things maybe. I think the biggest investment we made this summer was pulling back the schedule. And so I think as you see Q3 to Q4, we're adding more capacity back into the schedule. So I think that's showing some of these investments have paid off. In terms of things that we're peeling back, obviously slowing the pace of hiring across our in-flight and airport teams. in some cases offering some rest and relaxation programs this fall, which is more of a trough, which is a great place to be given where we were a year ago on sort of a higher, higher, higher framework. And then the other piece is pilots, which I mentioned before. We're actually seeing even Q3 to Q4 a slight ease up on some of our reserve levels. We will continue to plan for to have greater reserves than 2019, but I would not expect 2023 to have as high a reserve level as 2022. And so you'll see, I think, some meaningful improvements there over time. We are being careful, though, because the ATC environment remains fragile. The FAA has been a great partner, bringing a ton of transparency around what they're seeing in terms of staffing challenges. We know N90 is particularly challenged, and we don't think this is going to course correct in the next few months. So we are working closely with them to ensure that we are aligned in our planning assumptions and what we expect to see how they handle some of these programs and some of the irregular operations days. So continuing some investments there, but there remains opportunity in pilot reserve levels.
spk14: And this is Dave. Duane, one thing I'll note as well is our aircraft utilization on a year over three basis improves several points as we move from Q3 to Q4. So that helps as well. And we'll continue to see that in 2023 as we continue to ramp back towards our pre-COVID utilization.
spk00: And Duane, it's Robin. You're going to win the award because you're the only person so far to get four leaders to answer your question. The very comprehensive answer, which is appreciated. But I do think that, you know, we're confident in the – so, first of all, you're going to see more of us buffer the peaks more in future years as well. We're not going to go back to where we were in 2019. You know, if we think about the sort of the – if we think about pilots, you know, Jana talked about that, you know, we've been – if we look at sort of – November, for example, we're going to have about 14% more pilots flying about the same capacity than we did in 2019. So it's still a significant step up. What we don't know fully is we know we will unpeel those investments over time. What we don't quite know is how quickly we can do that because it's going to be very driven by, as Joanna said, the external environment and some of the issues that we've seen this year. But clearly there's a significant opportunity there to reduce costs as we unpeel it. And so if I look at – if I was to kind of take a – sort of a crystal ball into next year, as Joanna said. We will have lower reserve coverage than we had this year, but we won't be back to 2019 levels. I just don't know yet, you know, until we get into planning cycle, how big a step down that would be.
spk16: Well, thank you for that comprehensive answer. I do have a quick follow-up, hopefully quicker. Just with respect to – As you build out LaGuardia, as you have markets that maybe historically served from JFK and now you've built that out from LaGuardia, has anything surprised you in terms of very different demand set, very different pricing? Are there markets that look, in essence, completely different from LaGuardia?
spk14: Thanks, Dwayne. I'll take that. This is Dave. I'd say there's nothing that has completely surprised us or looked a lot differently than we thought, but we've certainly been learning a lot the past several months here, especially since LaGuardia went up to 52 flights a day in July. And the team is sort of constantly reworking the capacity plan and the schedules so that not only does this, you know, this capacity naturally improve as it ramps over time, but that we accelerate that improvement and raise the ceiling by improving the schedule to more closely align with customer demand. So no big surprises, but lots of tweaks and refinements that we'll be rolling out over the next months and year to continue to improve our New York performance.
spk16: Thank you.
spk13: Our next question will come from Helena Decker with Cohen. You may now go ahead.
spk11: Thanks very much, operator. So has the change in IATA designation for Newark changed the way you have to respond to the government on the NEA alliance?
spk00: Hi, Helena. I'll take that. No, absolutely not. The change that IATA has proposed or made really relates to fare construction only. It doesn't relate to what we call sort of multi-airport city codes. And so if you go into a GDS, if you go into Expedia and type NYC, you're going to get all airports come up, including Newark. Everyone who lives or works in New York clearly knows Newark is part of the New York airport system, managed by the same authority as LaGuardia and JFK. And, you know, we see customers move between those airports pretty regularly as well. So no, it has not, I mean, no impact on the NEA, but also no impact on JetBlue's business or any other airline business.
spk11: Thank you. That's very helpful. And then just a point of clarification. In terms of aircraft in and aircraft out, can you just say of the 22 aircraft you're planning for next year, what percent are replacement and what percent are growth?
spk12: Elaine, so next year we take, we're expected to take delivery of, well contractually we're supposed to take 18 A220s. Our planning assumption is that we take 14, so you can consider those replacement. We're contractually retiring six E190s, and then of the 30 that we own, we will also be retiring some of those as well. So in summary, the 14 airplanes, A220 that we take next year, the margin accretive aircraft that we take next year, will be replacement.
spk11: Okay, thanks for your help.
spk13: Our next question will come from Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. You may now go ahead.
spk01: Oh, hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Ursula, just a question on CapEx, the billion this year, just to remind us that's predominantly airplanes and that's being paid out of cash. Your one and a half to two billion of CapEx that you sort of guided to earlier on the call, is that presumably that's going to be a mix of cash and debt given the size? And I guess as an add-on, have you gotten actually any commitments for aircraft finance for aircraft that are coming in 2023?
spk12: So you're correct, Mike. The billion dollars this year will completely be funded by cash. The estimated CapEx range next year of 1.5 to 2, none of that is currently financed. We're going through the 2023 planning process at the moment, and so we'll share color with you in January around the baseline assumptions between cash and financing.
spk01: Okay, great. That's helpful. And then this is a question. I don't know if it's Robin or Joanna. Just, you know, the news out a week or two ago, Delta making an investment in Joby. I read somewhere something about an exclusivity, and I know that you guys also have an investment in Joby. Does that preclude you from doing anything with them down the road? I'm not sure if it was, like, geography-specific or airport-specific, the exclusivity. Just any comments. I know I'm sort of jumping ahead a few years.
spk00: Yeah, no. Hi, Mike. I'll take that. No, I mean, we were an early investor in Joby. We had a great partnership with them, really appreciated seeing that business grow and develop. And, you know, yeah, the partnership they announced with Delta – does provide an exclusivity period of five years. But I think we're very focused right now on executing the initiatives that we have. We're very focused on getting the Spirit transaction done because this is a very important strategic priority for our airline. And our JTV subsidiary has dozens of investments and ventures We have many opportunities across the spectrum there.
spk01: Yeah, that's what I thought. All right, great. Thanks for the questions.
spk13: Our next question will come from Chris Stephanopoulos with Saskahanna International Group. You may now go ahead.
spk07: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. So, Robin or Ursula, could you give a little bit more color on the modest aircraft delays that you mentioned in your prepared remarks for next year? Is that five or seven, and do you think that you can still grow capacity amidst the single digits with the modest delays? And I guess said another way, if it's easier to just answer it this way, could you fly the schedule that you're planning for 2023 with the aircraft that you have in the fleet now with the CASMX down that you're looking for? Thank you.
spk12: So as I mentioned, so contractually Airbus is supposed to deliver 29 airplanes to us next year. I think we're all well aware that they're struggling from ramp up challenges driven by manpower and supply chains. So we are seeing delivery delays. We're working hand in hand with them to manage through those. From a planning assumption perspective, contractually we're supposed to get 29. We're assuming we get a minimum of 22 next year. And with those 22 airplanes, we believe that we can deliver the mid to high single digit growth rate that we're planning for next year. And in turn, we also believe that we can deliver the flat or better CASMX fuel. Our utilization continues to be down here in the fourth quarter by a handful of points. As we enter next year, our fleet-wide utilization, we expect to increase a couple points as well. So, again, we feel confident based on what we know today and the assumptions that we've been working with Airbus on, we can deliver that mid- to high-single-digit growth rate.
spk00: Yeah, and just to add to that, you know, we also have the option of delaying retirement if we need to, And I think, you know, we're trying to give as much color on 2023 as we can based on what we know today. You know, we accept there is a macroeconomic question mark out there that people have. We're not seeing any signs of concerns around that today, but we also recognize it could be in the future. And so, you know, we will ultimately take decisions next year driven around by margins. And so we also have flexibility to adjust capacity down if that's what we need to do because of the economic environment. So we have a lot of flexibility to delay retirement, increase utilization. We've taken our spare count up significantly this year to de-risk the operation. We'll bring that down next year. Urs talked about some of the flavor around the delivery days. But I think at the end of the day, our capacity is going to be governed by what we, you know, what we see in terms of the economic environment as we go into next year. And clearly, you know, CASM forecasts are built off the capacity assumption that we're making today.
spk07: Okay, thank you. And a follow-up, Joanne, so in your comments, you spoke about potential cyclical slowing and some cautious planning around that. What are the key data points you're watching every day with respect to that, an obvious one being I'm guessing daily bookings, cash intake, but what are some of the more nuanced data points that you believe might signal a slowing? Thank you.
spk09: Yeah, just to be clear, we didn't signal any cyclical slowing, quite the opposite, actually. It's very strong. We're not seeing any slowdown specifically. We did speak to if there is one down the road, we think we're well positioned with the number of levers we have to pull, capacity being the largest, but we are not seeing any slowdown in terms of underlying demand. In terms of, you know, things we look for, bookings, fare, load, things of that nature. But, you know, beyond that, we're not seeing, you know, we're not seeing anything in terms of any kind of slowing or signs of it.
spk00: Yeah, I think in addition, you know, there's a number of other metrics that we can look at in terms of credit card data is also a good sort of indicator. Again, no concerns at this point. And I think, you know, what we're all struggling with here is the economy has grown significantly since 2019. You know, capacity has not kept up with that growth. If we think about, for those of us who have been in industry a long time, GDP and capacity growth was, you know, was probably one of the, or the link between capacity and GDP was probably the best correlation you could have. And so we have a lot of GDP growth that has occurred since 2019. And so the question is, If we have a recession, you know, and how much of that eats into that sort of higher base that we've already got. And, again, we continue to see a lot of pent-up demand, people who haven't flown for a period of time. We continue to see very high load factors on days where we haven't historically seen high load factors, which suggests to me there's still, you know, a lot of pent-up demand that we're still eating into.
spk07: Okay. Thank you.
spk13: Our next question will come from James Hollands with BMP. You may now go ahead.
spk02: Hi, many thanks. I want to come back on corporate travel. I mean, the 90% recovered from pre-COVID looks pretty good to me. I may be just an idiot, but I mean, perhaps I think conspicuous by its absence is really talking up the corporate travel either in your release or your presentation. Maybe you could run through the thoughts on how you're seeing corporate travel, how it's trending into the current season. Thank you.
spk14: Sure. Thanks, James. This is Dave. I'll take that. We're certainly pleased with the corporate travel trends we've seen the last four to six weeks here. There is still some choppiness, so I don't think we want to completely declare success. And it's still being about 90% bookings. It's clearly below the 2019 levels, whereas the rest of our revenue is up more than 20%. So relative to that, it's still got a long ways to go. But We're seeing a number of things. We're seeing not only the bookings but the travel, obviously, which follows on a few-week lag. We actually did have one week earlier this month where we had a higher flown revenue, so higher travel revenue this year than we did the same week in 2019. So that was a new record, which is very helpful. And the big thing for us, too, is, as mentioned before, the NEA is really accelerating for us in the past quarter. And we see the lion's share of our corporate happens in New York and Boston. So as the NEA ramps up with Seamlessness, as we continue to layer in the loyalty benefits, it is very heartening to see how the corporates have responded with additional co-chair bookings, additional accounts, things like that. So we feel very good about just the general corporate recovery as well as the NEA benefits that it's driving.
spk02: Thanks very much. And then just, I mean, from afar, I'm getting a lot of headlines on your court case, obviously on the North East Alliance. I was wondering if you were having any traction in court of the idea that it's not a merger with American, thanks.
spk00: Yeah, no, I'll take that. And thanks for the question, James. The trial is wrapping up soon. You know, I believe that we put on a really compelling case. We have a lot of conviction about the NEA. The consumer benefits are there for everybody to see. Everyone in New York loves having more JetBlue flying. Everyone in Boston loves having more JetBlue flying. They don't want to go back to how it was. And so we're confident. But at the end of the day, it's a process. The judge will make the decision. And we'll wait to hear. But I'm very pleased with the case that our team have put forward.
spk02: All right. Thanks very much.
spk13: Again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question will come from Dan McKenzie with Seaport Global. You may now go ahead.
spk04: Oh, hey. Thanks for squeezing me in here, guys. You know, Robin, to put a bowl on the revenue cost and utilization comments, For 2023, I'm guessing you could drive a Mack truck through how you're thinking about the business, you know, and what the street is modeling. And, you know, you've shared in the past the pieces are in place to drive $3 a share or more in earnings at some point, and, you know, the street seems to be dismissing that. So I guess the question is, you know, do you continue to have confidence in that outlook, you know, and given that, would you say consensus in betting the recession next year, you know, based on what you know today? And the point, of course, is Not really to tell us what to model. It's just, you know, again, going back to the conviction and your ability to drive sustainably higher margins from here.
spk00: Yeah, no, Dan, I mean, thanks for the question. I mean, we have a lot of conviction, a lot of confidence. As we, you know, we had a deeper hole than some to climb out of because of COVID. You know, we were in geography that I think everyone accepts was some of the most impacted. We didn't have the diversification in some revenue streams like cargo during COVID. COVID that others had. We had a bump this April as we had to pull down capacity to reflect, I think, a different planning assumption around some of the external constraints that we made in the system and some of the hiring challenges that we had. Of course, others have also had to course correct. And I think we have good momentum now. We continue to see strong revenue performance, notwithstanding some of the one-off headwinds that Dave and Joanna walked through from Q3 to Q4. We're executing on Chasm. We have a new structural cost program underway. We have the fleet modernization going on as well. Our revenue initiatives around travel products and loyalty are doing exactly what we said we've been doing for the last couple of years now, and we're pleased with those. And, you know, let's not forget that geographically like New York is still not fully recovered to the same degree as other geographies in the U.S., and we're seeing that recovery now. And then on top of that, we're seeing all the benefits from the NEA. So we have a lot of conviction. We recognize that that confidence has to be earned quarter by quarter on delivering on the results, and that's exactly what we're intending to do.
spk04: Okay. Okay. Second question here, regulatory approval for the Spirit merger by early 2024 I think is the messaging. That seems pretty specific. And I guess is that – are there some outside data points that give you certainty around that, or is that simply a legal guess by your counsel? And I'm just wondering, from where you sit, is there anything that – what might cause that timeframe to slip?
spk00: No, thanks, Dan. No, I mean, I think we laid out a pretty conservative timeline there. I mean, if you look at historically and previous precedent transactions in this space, they've been decided more quickly than that. I think we recognize, as we've been through this, that this transaction will face a lot of regulatory oversight and overview. And, you know, we wanted to lay out a pretty cautious timeline and hopefully beat it. So right now we're not changing anything. We're very excited about the prospect of creating this true national low fare challenger to bring the JetBlue effect to more geographies and more markets and speeding up our organic plan by several years. And I've been spending quite a bit of time recently down in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, and there's a lot of excitement down there around this merger. And so we are very excited to get on with it, but we're going to fully respect the regulatory process that's underway, comply with the requests that are being made by the Department of Justice, and hopefully get to a regulatory approval as quickly as time permits.
spk04: Very good. Thanks for the time, you guys.
spk13: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Joe Chiodo for any closing remarks.
spk03: Thanks, Anthony. That concludes our third quarter 2022 conference call. Thanks for joining us. Have a great day.
spk13: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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