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Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Airlines December quarter and full year 2020 financial results conference call. My name is Kathy, and I will be your coordinator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until we conduct a question-and-answer session following the presentation. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and I now would like to turn the conference over to Jill Greer, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Jill Greer
Thanks, Kathy. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our December quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. Joining us from Atlanta today are our CEO, Ed Bastian, our President, Glenn Hauenstein, and our Interim Co-CFO, Gary Chase. Our entire leadership team is available for the Q&A session. Ed will open the call with an overview of Delta's performance and strategy. Glenn will provide an update on the revenue environment, and Gary will discuss cost and liquidity in our balance sheet. We've extended our call today to 90 minutes total to make sure we have plenty of time for questions. For analysts, we ask you to please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up so we can get to as many of you as possible. After the analyst Q&A, we'll move to our media questions, after which Ed will provide some closing remarks. 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 statements. 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 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 to Ed.
Ed
Thanks, Jill. Good morning, everyone. This morning we reported pre-tax losses of $2.1 billion for the December quarter and $9 billion for the full year. capping the toughest year in Delta's history. We've been saying all along that this recovery wouldn't follow a straight line, that demand choppiness as COVID infections rose across the country, and government and public health officials issued travel advisories on revenues of $3.5 billion for the fourth quarter, which is 30% of last year's levels. And although we still have a tough winter ahead of us, we're encouraged by the progress that's been made on the vaccine front, and are confident that Delta is positioned to successfully lead our industry into recovery as the year unfolds. While 2020 was a challenging year, we delivered results for all of our stakeholders. For our employees, we prioritized protecting their health and safety and preserving our culture. For example, throughout the past year, we have offered and continue to offer an extensive employee testing program and pay protection programs for employees diagnosed, exposed, or at high risk of COVID-19. We have had remarkable volunteerism, up to 40,000 employees taking unpaid leaves throughout the summer to protect jobs and preserve cash. And in fact, we still have over 10,000 employees in the month of January out on unpaid leaves. And we have made it through this year without furloughing any employees. Our emphasis on taking care of our people is reflected in Delta's recognition this week by Glassdoor as one of the best places to work for the fifth year in a row, coming in seventh overall on a list of 100 large companies, the highest rank Delta has ever received, all in the face of a pandemic. Really incredible work by our team. For our customers, we're keeping them at the center of our recovery. Our health and safety efforts from being the only major U.S. airline that continues to block middle seats to partnering with with leading names like the Mayo Clinic, Emory Healthcare, Lysol, and Purell in developing the DeltaCare standard, to launching the industry's first COVID-tested transatlantic flights with no quarantine on arrival, are all targeted at restoring consumer confidence in travel and reopening borders, which will be an important driver of revenue growth in the future. Our customers recognize the outstanding service our people provide with an all-time high December net promoter score of 71, up 20 points year over year, and by Business Travel News, naming Delta the top airline for corporate travelers for the 10th year in a row, and once again coming in first place on all 12 metrics that they measure in the survey. That customer preference and loyalty is what underlies our revenue premium and has never been stronger. And finally, for our shareholders, We secured our liquidity position and rescaled our cost structure. We reduced liquidity risk by raising over $25 billion in capital since the pandemic began. With approximately $17 billion of liquidity, our adjusted net debt, however, only increased $8 billion year over year, and we don't expect that net debt will increase going forward. We've swiftly removed costs from the business, with three consecutive quarters of operating expenses declining by nearly 50% or more, increasing the variable nature of our cost structure. In fact, in the December quarter, our all-in unit costs were down 4.5% year-over-year, despite flown capacity being down 44%. That is a remarkable achievement and credit to all Delta employees for making that happen. And by keeping our costs under control, We leveraged the modest increase in net sales to reduce our average daily cash burns $12 million a day for the December quarter, half of what it was in the September quarter, and a decrease of 90% since the early days of the pandemic in late March. Turning to 2021, we expect the March quarter to look similar to the December quarter, with the March quarter revenues at 35% to 40% of March quarter 2019 levels, and our cash burn for the quarter holding at $10 to $15 million per day. We expect that will be followed by an inflection point this spring as vaccine distribution continues, travel restrictions start to ease, and consumer confidence begins to grow, hopefully resulting in cash burn reaching break-even or better by the second quarter. And as the year progresses, we expect demand will start to accelerate, as vaccinations become more widespread and the virus is in a contained state, and customers gain greater confidence to make future travel commitments. This should enable a sustained recovery to begin in the second half of 2021 with a return to profitability this summer. So as we work through this environment, we're focused on five things. First, as always, we're committed to keeping our culture intact and our employees engaged. The Delta people are our most strategic assets. They have done a tremendous job this year, and together we'll lead our airline through the recovery. Second, we'll continue to prioritize the customer with a focus on health and safety and the maintenance of the industry's strongest network, thereby increasing loyalty and preference for our brand. Customers have shown they're willing to pay more for the quality of our network, product, and our service. The gains we've achieved in customer satisfaction position as well to drive sustainable revenue growth in the future. Third, we'll maintain our focus on innovation, which will enable our employees to improve the customer experience and drive efficiency through the business. And innovative thinking will power our ability to tackle big challenges in front of us, like our goal of achieving carbon neutrality in the next decade. Fourth, we'll drive a competitive cost structure. Given the changes we've made over the last year, Our goal is to sustain our non-fuel unit costs at or below 2019 levels by the December quarter of this year on roughly 75% of 2019 capacity levels, displaying continued agility in managing our costs. And finally, we're committed to debt reduction and creating long-term shareholder value, including continuing to protect our owners so that they can participate in future upside without dilution. Because for investors, While the near-term demand path is murky, industry fundamentals remain intact. Following almost a year of subdued travel, customers are beginning to exhibit behavior that is indicative of pent-up demand. Shopping visits across Delta's digital channels are significantly outpacing the passenger volumes we're carrying. In our most recent corporate survey, 40% of respondents expect full recovery by 2022. Our partners at American Express are also seeing encouraging signs, whether it's cardholders holding on to their points in anticipation of redeeming them for air travel. For a recent survey that suggested approximately 70% of respondents expect to take a trip in 2021 after not traveling in 2020. Although it will take time, customers want to travel again when they feel it's safe. They feel they've had a year of their life taken from them, and they're starting to get ready to reclaim it. Until then, We're fortunate to have the support of the U.S. government, which recognizes the importance of the airline industry, and we thank Congress and the administration for passing the COVID relief bill last month. As a result of that bill, we anticipate receiving approximately $3 billion in additional payroll support funds, largely on terms similar to the initial CARES Act program. These funds have been critical in saving thousands of industry jobs during an unprecedented level of demand decline. And it's why the U.S. airline industry is in the best position to recover from the pandemic over any other international market. So while 2020 was a difficult year and challenges will continue in 2021, I'm encouraged at some of the data that we're seeing. And I'm proud of the foundation that we've built at Delta. This company is well positioned to emerge in a stronger competitive position from this crisis and will continue to lead our industry in the years ahead. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Glenn. Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. As Ed mentioned, we started the December quarter seeing encouraging demand trends, but with rising COVID cases and travel advisories, we began to see some weakness around Thanksgiving and into December. Despite that softness, the peak periods continue to outperform non-peak periods, and we've seen sequential improvement in total revenues, which recovered from being down 80% in the September quarter, to down 70% in the December quarter on sellable capacity that was down 62%. On January 3rd, we had a $50 million ticket revenue day and carried more than 250,000 customers. Both of these were the highest since the onset of the pandemic. And despite having meaningfully less inventory for sale, given our middle seat block, we outperformed on passenger revenue generation in the first nine months of the year. This is a testament to customers' willingness to pay a premium for the Delta difference. Leisure markets and some destinations are the best performers in our network. With our approach of targeting sellable capacity to match demand, we are biasing restoring capacity to leisure markets. As a result, roughly one-third of our domestic capacity is currently deployed into leisure destinations. Our coastal hubs, especially New York and Boston, are still some of the weakest areas in our network, with demand in those hubs only 20 to 25% recovered. International demand remains weak and is limited to essential travel. That said, we continue to work towards opening additional COVID-tested lanes of travel with no quarantine on arrival, similar to our Atlanta to Rome and Atlanta to Amsterdam flights. This will be important in restoring confidence in long-haul international travel as vaccine rollouts continue. Our premium seat strategy is holding up well. Domestic premium revenues performed in line with main cabin in the quarter. A good outcome considering that we're continuing to operate a largely leisure-driven environment with a higher proportion of premium seats held back due to our middle seat blocks. As all of you are aware, corporate demand continues to be depressed and was only 10% to 15% restored for the quarter. Corporate revenue was about three points higher than the September quarter, with small and medium accounts, which make up half of our corporate revenues, recovering five points faster than large corporates. While the passenger revenue environment remains challenging, we're encouraged that efforts to diversify our revenue streams have paid off. Our American Express remuneration in 2020 with nearly $3 billion, down only 30% on a year-over-year basis. In fact, American Express has shared that spending on our co-brand car portfolio has performed in line to slightly better than their overall car portfolio spend in 2020. In the December quarter, MRO revenue was down almost 30% relative to the same period last year, while cargo revenue was up 10% on a year-over-year basis. This marks the first quarter of cargo revenue growth since the December 2018 quarter. Our December quarter results reflect the challenges that the pandemic has brought, not just to Delta, but to the entire airline industry. I am incredibly grateful for the efforts of the entire Delta team in managing through the challenging year that we faced. Now that we think about 2021, we see three distinct phases to the year. And for each phase, we have levers to help us react to the emerging demand environment. In the first phase, we expect demand shopping to continue, the booking curve to remain more compressed, and the results to be similar to the December quarter. In response, we'll focus on making sure that our sellable capacity largely aligns with the emerging demand environment. For example, our January and February domestic schedule seats will be down 3% to 6%, versus the non-holiday period in November. That will result in our March quarter sellable capacity being approximately 55% lower relative to the same period in 2019, consistent with the expected 60 to 65% revenue decline. We'll also continue to leverage our non-ticket revenue streams like cargo, loyalty, and MRO that we believe should continue to outperform passenger revenues. In the second phase, vaccination distribution continues, travel restrictions and advisories begin to ease, and customer confidence begins to grow. As that happens, we expect to see an extension of the booking curve, resulting in a cash-led recovery with revenue recovery to follow. We anticipate this will happen in the spring and will result in us achieving our cash firm break-even target. In response to the second phase, our middle seats will be a very powerful tool for us, one we can use to add capacity in a very cost-efficient way, generating a meaningful margin tailwind. In the final phase, vaccinations become more widespread and offices begin to reopen. We expect that to occur in the second half of 21 and as a result in a sustained improvement in demand and yield, with progression in cash generation as the booking curve normalizes. With the recovery initially fueled by leisure demand, Delta's success will be driven by our superior connecting economics to our core hubs domestically and our partner hubs internationally. With 34 new aircraft deliveries this year, we'll also leverage higher gauge and more efficient aircraft that produce lower seat costs, more premium seats, and a better customer experience. This will allow us to capitalize on our brand affinity and upsell opportunities, which are enabled by the elimination of change fees for U.S. customers and the redemption of e-credits. It will take longer for corporate demand to return, but we are encouraged by the results of our recent corporate survey. Our corporate accounts are telling us that they largely anticipate returning to their offices and travel in the June and September quarters. They are also telling us by the end of 21, half are expecting to return to 50% to 100% of pre-COVID domestic travel and up to 50% of pre-COVID international travel. To our corporate customers, our commitment to you remains unchanged. Delta is ready when you are. We will be ready to serve our corporate customers by leveraging the strongest domestic and international networks, rebuilding focused cities and point-to-point flying based on customer needs and by capitalizing on our efforts to always put the customer experience at the center of what we do. We're optimistic for the future, having built the right foundation and focusing on what we can control. We are confident in our ability to successfully navigate the post-pandemic recovery. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Gary. Thanks, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. Let me touch on the fourth quarter in 2020, and then I'll turn to the outlook for costs in the balance sheet as we head into 21. Our December quarter pre-tax loss of $2.1 billion is about $500 million better than the September quarter, given the revenue improvement Glenn just discussed, combined with strong cost discipline. We reduced costs by approximately 50% from 2019 levels for the third consecutive quarter. More importantly, our costs were up just 6% from the third quarter on 30% capacity growth. And three-quarters of that increase came from higher fuel. Total unit cost, including fuel, was down 4.5% compared to 2019 on 44% lower-flown capacity. Our average daily cash burn for the December quarter was $12 million. Half of the third quarter is $24. We closed the year with $16.7 billion in liquidity. an adjusted net debt of $18.8 billion, up about $8 billion versus year-end 2019. Now, as we look into the year ahead, improving demand fundamentals will underpin a transition of our financial focus, from protecting our liquidity to positioning the company for a return to profitability and free cash flow. I'll explain our approach to costs on our balance sheet as we make this transition. Let's start with cost. We need to stay flexible and maintain our discipline in order to position the company for the return to profitability Ed mentioned, as we expect continued shoppiness and demand in the early part of the year. We've already taken structural steps to resize our business. Our two largest cost drivers, fleet and headcount, are both 15% to 20% smaller than they were in 2019. Headcount reductions were a difficult but necessary decision. It was hard to see 18,000 talented and dedicated coworkers leave, but it's a testament to the Delta culture that these reductions were achieved entirely through voluntary means. We accelerated our fleet transformation by retiring aircraft with relatively short remaining lives and simplified our fleet by eliminating two entire families while increasing our gauge. On a run rate basis, these changes will drive more than $400 million in annualized cost benefits. As we add capacity in 21, we will drive higher utilization of our system, and we have room to rebuild our network from current levels at low incremental costs, approximately 40% to 50% of our December quarter non-fuel chasm. Our goal is to produce and sustain non-fuel unit costs below 2019 levels by the fourth quarter. That cost focus will be a key driver of profitability later in the year when demand returns. Looking to the March quarter, we're preparing for stronger demand by reactivating aircraft and restoring our people to full hours, driving about $200 million in additional costs versus the December quarter. Our March quarter total operating expense will be 35% to 40% lower than March quarter 19, with a total unit cost including fuel down 5% to 10% on approximately 35% lower flown capacity. Let's move now to capital, the balance sheet, and liquidity. As we begin the year, conditions are similar to where we exited 2020. A modest uplift in net sales should offset the cost investments we're making in the quarter, and as a result, we expect average daily cash burn between $10 and $15 million, similar to the December quarter. With further improvements in net sales as customers gain confidence, we expect our cash burn to cease this spring. With that goal in sight, we're turning our focus to how we will balance reinvesting in the business while reducing our debt levels. Given our expectations for cash flow in 21 and proceeds from the PSP extension, we expect our current adjusted debt levels to be the high watermark for that important metric. For the full year, we're expecting $2.5 billion in gross capex, a significant reduction from the $4 to $5 billion that we were spending pre-COVID. We have $1.3 billion of aircraft purchase commitments for 34 new deliveries this year, which we have the option to fully finance, and about $1 billion in non-aircraft capex. Including retirements, we expect our fleet count at the end of 2021 will be 15% smaller than at year-end 19, with total fleet declining from about 1350 to about 1130. An equal priority is to work on our balance sheet by reducing our liquidity and paying down debt. We have approximately $1.8 billion of debt maturities in 21 and $2.1 billion in 22. our debt has an average interest rate of 4.6%, which will drive approximately $350 million in quarterly interest expense. However, we will begin reducing those expenses by paying down debt this year. We do not have mandatory pension contributions until 2025 under airline relief, but we expect to make at least $500 million in voluntary contributions this year. In terms of a quarter-end outlook with about $3 billion of PSP support expected from the government of March quarter, we project ending the period with $18 to $19 billion in liquidity and adjusted net debt of approximately $18 billion. Let me close by saying this. The Delta difference has never been more important, and I'd like to thank the Delta team for delivering for each other and for our customers amid the industry's most challenging environment ever. Because of your dedication, we will emerge from the crisis stronger and more resilient than ever. With that, turn the call back over to Jill to begin the Q&A.
Jill Greer
Thanks, Gary. Kathy, we're ready for questions from the analysts. If you could give the instructions on how to get in the queue.
Operator
Certainly. And, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, that is star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note that if you're on a speakerphone, to pick up your handset or depress your mute function to allow that signal to reach our systems. Again, that is star one to ask a question. And we'll go first to Savi Saeed with Raymond James. Good morning, everyone. I'm just kind of curious after the vaccine news, have you seen a change in booking behavior? And also, I know the testing requirement is probably positive longer term for opening up international demand, but are you seeing travelers perhaps shifting to more domestic summits and destinations from international?
Ed
Savvy, the vaccine deployment still is very early, and we haven't really seen much in the form of changed behaviors. We hear a lot anecdotally, but it's also one of the weakest travel periods of the year in the current month that we're in. We've not seen the booking curve start to expand. We certainly hope to see that as we get through the quarter and vaccines continue to become more prevalent.
Operator
Makes sense. I'd be curious, just a follow-up on some of the kind of changing dynamics here. I was wondering if you have any kind of preliminary thoughts on how maybe the American and JetBlue partnership might impact kind of the northeast position.
Ed
We're not going to comment on our competitors or speculate. You know us well. You know we love competition, and I think competition makes you better.
Operator
All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Jamie Baker of JP Morgan.
Ed
Hey, good morning, everybody. First question for Glenn, sort of a follow-up, I suppose, on Sabi's question. In normal times, what percentage of international revenue is made up of trips that last fewer than four or five days? You know, I'm asking because, you know, I would think a trip of that duration would be particularly jeopardized by the need to land and almost immediately take a COVID test so that you could come home. Well, you know, I think that's dependent on how far customers are traveling. Generally, the longer they travel, the longer the stay is. So I think what we are seeing is a very good response from the closer in Caribbean and Mexico resorts where hotels are now going to be offering that as part of the package. And so while there may be some choppiness as there has been through this whole environment as we start adopting those testing procedures, we think in pretty short order here that customers will adapt. And to the extent that travel does shift from short-haul international back to domestic, we'll be ready to move the airplanes back, too. Jamie, I'd like to add to Glenn's comments. You know, we're still working, obviously, with the CDC. We endorse and support the testing requirements they've put in place, but a new feature is the inclusion of rapid testing into the mix. So it doesn't necessarily mean it only has to be a PCR test. With the growth of antigen tests and the quality of antigen testing that's out there and the supplies in place, you literally could get some of these tests done within a 10-minute interval shortly before you return. Excellent. Thank you for that, gentlemen. And a question for Gary. How are you thinking about the optimal level of liquidity to carry in the future? You know, sort of a post-pandemic question. And if you haven't reached that conclusion yet, is that because it's just not a priority right now or do you simply need to wait and, you know, see how the recovery plays out before reaching a decision? I think what I would say is it's obviously less than today. We need some time. We have, I think, some work in front of us to think through where we ultimately want that to be. But I think the important point is we're getting started, and I think you see some of that. During the quarter, we prepaid our term loan that was matured in April for about $3 billion today. We mentioned during the script that we do plan to make a pension contribution, which, as you know, we consider part of our financial obligations. So we are getting started. We don't have more specifics, but we are getting started. And we're very focused on that $350 million number that I described and using the liquidity that we have where it makes sense to drive that down. And just a fine point on PSP, a simple yes or no question, have the terms been achieved, and if so, are they the same as the first round?
Gary
Thanks.
Ed
Yeah, Jamie, it's Peter Carter. The terms are identical to PSP 1. Perfect. Thank you, everybody. Take care.
Gary
Thanks, Jamie.
Operator
Our next question will come from Hunter Key of Wolf Research.
Gary
Good morning. Ed, about a year ago we talked on this call about intentionally running lower load factors, and it's happening in a weird way. But you're getting paid for it, and your NPS scores are, as you mentioned, at an all-time high. So, you know, unblocking middle seats is obviously a tactical choice, but even when you unblock them, you don't have to sell them. So I guess the question is longer term, how are you thinking about running less full airplanes as an opportunity to differentiate yourself for that premium traveler?
Ed
Yes, Hunter, it is an interesting year. I will say that. We've not made a decision beyond the end of March relative to when to unblock the middle seats. We have some time to continue to look at that. I think it's going to be very much driven by customer demand, customer input, the confidence customers have in those seats, but no question about it, we are generating a meaningful premium due to that decision. Hunter, if I could have just a quick follow-up on that. I guess there are two ways, as we discussed last year, to do that. One is by creating more premium seats, and the other is by running lower load factors. As we go through this bleak transition, our premium seats as a percent of our total seats continue to rise, and I think that's our primary goal. a way to satisfy the demand for premium customers is to continue to provide them with a higher level of quality. Got it.
Hunter
Yeah, thank you, Glenn. And then on the 18,000 early ads, can you achieve 2019 capacity without backfilling any of those positions?
Ed
Could you speak louder? We missed the start of your question, Hunter.
Hunter
Sorry about that, Deb. That's cool. The 18,000 early outs, the question is, like, how much can you achieve 2019 capacity levels without backfilling the majority or the entirety of those positions?
Ed
We can achieve 2019 levels without, of course, 20% of our people. There's no question about it. But we don't need to backfill it entirely either. So, you know, there's a middle ground there.
Gary
Okay. And then just one more quick one since we have 90 minutes, just to follow up on Jamie's follow-up. Peter, have you negotiated the strike prices for the warrants attached to BSP, too?
Ed
We have, and it's $39 and some change.
Gary
Thank you.
Operator
And now we will go to Andrew Deardorff of Bank of America.
Hunter
Hi, good morning, everyone.
Ed
Glenn, my first question for you, probably a little tough to answer, but just curious about how you're thinking about the trade-off between yield and load factor as you move through the different phases of the recovery that you talk to. As travel restrictions ease, do you see the need to stimulate more demand with price, or do you think there's enough pent-up demand in the network that load factor is a bigger driver?
Gary
Just curious how you're thinking about that.
Ed
I think we're taking a yield bias as we go into the peak summer, hoping that demand exceeds supply. And if that doesn't materialize, we can make those adjustments later. But we have anticipated that there will be a nice recovery in demand as we get towards the summer, and we've taken a conservative approach. I hope that answers your question. I'll certainly help stream it a bit. And then, Ed, I know Gary gave some information about CapEx this year, but how are you thinking about that over the next few years, especially in life with your desire to de-lever here? And what do you need to see in order to feel more comfortable in placing new aircraft orders?
Gary
Thank you.
Ed
Well, Andrew, I think we're a little early yet in terms of thinking about the long-term CapEx picture. I think we moved $5 billion of aircraft CapEx alone with Airbus out over the next several years. The degree to which we want to take positions and new positions coming up, we'll continue to evaluate that based on demand. But right now I feel pretty comfortable with where we sit.
Andrew
Thank you.
Operator
And now we'll go to Brandon Olinsky of Barclays.
Hunter
Hey, good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question.
Ed
Gary, can you talk about some of the structural things that you've taken out of the cost structure to reach that chasm target by the end of the year? And I think you made a comment about incrementally like 40% to 50% of your fourth quarter chasm would be variable. Is that how you hear that right? Yeah, so, Brandon, let me start with the first question. The structural costs, the two biggest ones in our business are really headcount and fleet, as we mentioned. The fleet really determines an awful lot of the infrastructure that we need from a cost standpoint.
Gary
We expect to get leverage out of all of our costs associated with assets. We look about a third of our cost structure on a monthly basis is fixed. So as we grow, we'll obviously get leverage there.
Ed
And we have pockets of opportunity in terms of better utilization of just the overall system. When I think about what we're doing here, and this gets to your second question, There are kind of two big things that I talk about or that we all talk about internally as we think about this effort that we're embarking on. The first is baseline aggressively, and it's really have a laser focus on what's in the cost structure now and what makes sense. You see that in the 50% reductions that we've been posting now for several quarters. The second thing we say is leverage the build, and that's really where the incremental thought process comes. That's about being very thoughtful about better leveraging the system as we start to rebuild. Now, I think in terms of your second question, incremental cost, it's pretty simple the way we're thinking about it. It's just change in cost divided by change in ASMs. and we wanted to give some guideposts as to the leverage that we do expect going forward. That's where the 40% to 50% of December capacity comes in. I'll just note, if you take a look at the second half of 2020, it was quite a bit better than that.
Gary
And that was why I emphasized that comment in the prepared remarks about how we scaled the system, particularly in the fourth quarter. Well, thank you, sir. I think that was very much good.
Operator
Our next question will come from Radhi Shankar of Morgan Stanley.
Radhi Shankar of Morgan Stanley
Thanks. Morning, everyone. A couple of questions on business travel. You said that small and medium-sized corporates are coming back first. Are you surprised by that? And is that good news or bad news for, you know, when the bigger guys come back, when the world opens up again?
Ed
Ravi, we're not surprised by that. These are small business owners who need to get out to their customers, who have to work hard every single day to keep their sales and their business moving. And we do see a meaningful continued improvement in small business traffic, some that we can measure, others that we can't see because they're not under contracts with us. But we know that's an important part of overall business travel. But I do want to talk about the overall corporate travel results. As you probably know, we extensively survey our corporate customers, our large corporate customers, on a quarterly basis, in addition to just being with them on a weekly basis, as to their thoughts on the return of travel. And the most recent survey that we conducted, which just ended a couple of weeks ago, indicated that 40%, of our big corporate customers expect they will be fully back to 2019 levels by 2022. And another 11% said that they expect to be fully back by 2023. So that's a little over 50% of the customers. And these are the people, I won't speculate what's gonna happen to business travel. These are the customers who make those decisions. 7% said we'll never be back to 2019 levels. only 7%, and 42% said they weren't sure, needed more time to figure it out. So with all the dialogue and speculation around the depth of business travel, just looking at that survey, it's very interesting. If you take the 51% that said they'll be fully backed by 23, the majority of which is in 22, and then you consider the second quadrant of the 50% who have So they'll never return or they're not sure they'll return. And even if you assumed only 50% of their travel returns, that gets you 75% of the way back no later than 23. And I think that's a very pessimistic view on business travel. So what we've been talking about, corporate travel and business travel returning, I felt optimistic when I saw those results. We know it's going to be different going forward. I've said many times it could be 10% to 20% lower over time. over a period as it's substituted and complemented. There will be different types of travelers, different reasons for people traveling, but I think business travel has got a very, very strong opportunity return over the next two years, and we're going to be well-positioned to carry it.
Radhi Shankar of Morgan Stanley
That is great color on the demand side of business travel. Thank you for that. If I can just follow up with a question on the supply side, clearly you guys are leaders from a corporate travel standpoint, but we have seen some of your LCC competitors start to maybe try and make some inroads as that traffic comes back. So maybe can you give us more color on kind of how you maintain that leadership and how you see the competitive environment looking like for business travel when that does come back?
Ed
I think that the delta difference has never been more pronounced than it is right now. And if you look at our share of corporate travel that is traveling, we have experienced the highest levels in our history. So demand for our products and services is incredibly high for people who want it. And I think that's where our challenge remains is to continue to provide industry leading products and services that our corporate travelers want and need. And that's been what we've been doing over the past several years and what we'll continue to do as we get to the end of this pandemic. And I think that's going to be what differentiates us. And clearly there's always people who would like to take that travel away from you because it is some of the highest-yielding travel in the system. But I think that's our goal, and our mission is to stay ahead of that and provide it through a pull. People want to fly Delta as opposed to a push, which is, hey, we can lower fares and try and move up the sides or the bottom of this. Very good. Thank you.
Operator
And now our next question will come from Catherine O'Brien of Goldman Sachs. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for the time. So my first question is actually about your comments earlier about seeing a cash recovery before a revenue recovery. And to try to square that with the 65% of your ATL as vouchers, you know, as maybe early prospective bookings are coming in for later in the year, are these majority new bookings? Okay.
Catherine O'Brien
or maybe there's a higher percentage of those vouchers that are corporate and you expect the early part of recovery to be leisure. We just want some color on that comment. Thank you.
Ed
Yeah, Katie, some of that came through a little garbled, but let me say this. I think the distinction is really about timing. You know, in the early, in the spring, what we expect and mentioned it a few times. We think as confidence starts to build, what you'll see is that people will start booking for further out in the booking curve. And so we will have a build in our air traffic liability that helps us cross cash break even earlier in the spring. P&L break even is something that will take a little bit more. That's when our revenue is going to be covering our expenses, and that is something that we expect will lag a little bit behind the build-in bookings and will be there by the summer, as we've mentioned. Maybe just a little bit on our redemptions for the e-credits. We are running in the low to mid-teens right now in terms of total revenues with the e-credits coming back, and we expect that to stay below 20 as we move through this next period here. And that number has been pretty consistent throughout the entire year, so we have a pretty good sense for what that's going to look like.
Operator
Okay, understood. And can you guys hear me a little bit better now?
Ed
Yeah.
Operator
Okay, great.
Catherine O'Brien
Understood. And I know you guys have one of the furthest out periods through which people can redeem, so that makes sense. Maybe one on the cost structure. Of course, this pandemic has created a lot of pain for the industry, so I don't want to glaze over that.
Operator
But outside of speeding up your fleet simplification, have you found other opportunities to make the operation more efficient, perhaps maybe speeding up some of your automation plans on the customer-facing side? We'd love to just hear about other opportunities that have been born out of this crisis. Thank you very much.
Ed
We have, Katie. I'm not sure where to get into some of the specifics. I will say that the fleet simplification has been something actually that we think is in our run rate today. You're seeing some of the benefit in the fourth quarter, but it is something that will have a much bigger impact as we move to rescale the network through 2021. You know, when I mentioned the concept of leveraging the build, you know, and maybe one of the reasons why, you know, I'm thinking through it just as I'm thinking through it is there are a lot of things that, you know, we want to think about doing differently. You know, one of the unique opportunities of you always want to make something good out of what has transpired is And it does give us an opportunity to start fresh. One of the reasons I think we are showing the kind of leverage as we rebuild is because we have a clean sheet of paper in some sense to start from. Yeah, I'd like to add to Gary's comments. I think it's remarkable the work the team has done on the cost side to get out in the fourth quarter to the point where our all-in unit costs are 4.5% lower quarter over quarter despite the having over 40% less capacity to work with. This speaks to the ingenuity of the team, rethinking as we speak what the, not just the current environment, but the future environment is. And these are not costs that we're deferring out into the future. We're making real changes real time here. And it touches every part of our business. So it's Since demand has been low, we've been all over cost the entire year, and the team has done really, really good work here.
Catherine O'Brien
Yes, definitely some impressive stats you were able to throw out earlier. Well, thank you all for the time.
Ed
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Dwayne Zingsworth of Evercore ISI.
Andrew
Hey, thanks. Good morning.
Ed
You covered this in pieces, and I'll follow up to a couple of other analysts, but one of the things that Delta's been talking about during this crisis, which makes a lot of sense, is getting to 2019 chasm on a capacity footprint that's smaller. So I wonder if you'd kind of quantify how much smaller a footprint can Delta still deliver 2019 chasm, and is the thinking or the logic and the focus really more on chasm recovery and margin recovery before necessarily capacity recovery. Dwayne, I'll take that. Listen, they're all interrelated. You need to put the revenue and the capacity out there in line with demand, not in line with your chasm strategy. But they're solely connected to the ability to drive costs down. One of the things that we have, been a leader for many, many years, really the last decade, is on our upgaging strategy, domestically particularly. And that will continue to be important as we move forward. And while we talk about simplifying the fleet, we've taken some big steps in that direction. We're also going to be advancing the upgaging of the domestic fleet at the same time. So that's a big contributor. We'll continue to to be a contributor with both driving down cost as well as improving the customer experience and revenue, including premium revenue opportunities. I said in my remarks that our goal is to get that 2019 unit cost by the end of this year on roughly 75% of 2019 capacity level. That's a pretty good marker. We hope our capacity level is higher. I'll be honest with you. The demand environment is driving that. But that's going to be driven by demand, not by cost.
Glenn
That's very helpful. And then maybe just broad brush strokes. You gave us the 75% by year end.
Greg Conrad
Is that how we should be thinking about, you know, your view of exit rate? And how are you thinking, again, it can change, but how are you thinking about the summer as a percent of 2019?
Ed
No, we're not using that as a guide for capacity levels. We're using that for our own internal calculations in terms of where we need to get our cost structure down. It won't be 75%. It may be higher, maybe lower. I don't know. There's a long way to go between here and there, and we'll keep you posted as we go.
Andrew
Okay. And then just last one, maybe a question from a different era, but could you walk us through –
Ed
the comps on revenue monthly, because it seems like your guidance foots well. You know, January, February, similar to kind of 4Q levels, but March, it seems like there's a wide range of outcomes on March, and obviously the comps, you know, fall off materially, you know, middle of March. So I don't know if you have the data handy, but, you know, how much easier is March and April relative to kind of Jan, Feb? Dwayne, we're not going back to giving monthly revenue guides, so I'm sorry, I'm going to have to pass.
Glenn
Fair enough.
Andrew
The comps do get easier. Thanks for taking the questions.
Ed
The comps will get easier.
Operator
And now we will go to Joseph Denari of Stiefel.
Ed
Thanks. Good morning. Ed, you talked about the corporate travel environment. In a scenario where corporate traffic is impaired 15% to 20%, what does that mean for Ural's earnings power, and why shouldn't we be concerned that, I guess, the fleet strategy is adding more premium seats into a declining premium market? Joe, I wouldn't draw the conclusion that corporate travel is impaired at all. In fact, I've not said that. I think we may see lower corporate travel. But I also think it will be changed, potentially a different mix. So I don't think we should be worried they're ringing alarm bells relative to the future of corporate travel. All indications are is corporate travel is ready to start coming back and will come back pretty aggressively beginning of the second half of this year. We are a smaller airline. We've got 200 fewer planes today. We've already right-sized the business to be smaller, which will help. protect the premium revenue sources and the margins of the business. And that's why we spent a lot of time on this call talking about our cost performance. That's going to be the key to make sure that we protect the margins in an environment where corporate travel will be down for the foreseeable future. Maybe it's permanently down by a little bit of a lower amount, but I'm not ready to declare that quite yet. Could I add something to that? I think When you think about our premium products and services, you also ought to think that these are not only filled by corporate travelers. As a matter of fact, only less than a third of those seats are actually filled by the corporate travelers, and two-thirds are filled by non-corporates. And I think it's our ability to provide the right products and services for non-corporates as well with the right sell-off opportunities so that we can match their preferences to our products and services. And I think that's really been one of the great hallmarks of the transformation is to say, this is really available to everybody at reasonable prices. And that's been one of our key successes, I think. Got it. That makes sense. Ed, it's my understanding that owners of your SkyMiles debt are getting access to quarterly updated financial disclosures for SkyMiles, similar to those you provided when you marketed the transaction earlier. So my understanding that equity investors are not. So my question for you is, how is that fair? How do you expect your equity investors to make a fully informed decision on your stock if they're not being provided with updated disclosures for what you guys have proven is your most valuable asset? Thank you. Joe, I'll let Gary take that because he's closer to the financial disclosures. But I will say, while the law department is a very important asset, our most important asset are our people. Gary? Yeah, Joe, we are providing some disclosures to those debt holders, as you described. Look, I think we agree with some of the sentiment that you have expressed over time. We see the value there. I think Glenn did a good job of articulating how well it is holding up. We've been on a path to provide more information there. I think you'll have to be a little forgiving. We've had a lot on our mind, and I think you can expect us to continue down that path for the reason, for the very same reason that I think you've been asking about it, because we do see the value there.
Gary
Thank you.
Operator
And now we will go to Greg Conrad of Jefferies.
Greg Conrad
Good morning, and thank you. Just To follow up on some of the past questions, I mean, I guess in terms of the competitive environment, your yields have held up relatively well, only down 2% or 3% on a relatively short booking curve with reduced corporate travel. I mean, how do you think about that potential trajectory for yields as the booking curve normalizes and some of the corporate travel returns? I mean, is there opportunity to kind of be above where you were in 2019?
Ed
I think there's always opportunity to be above where we were in 2019. That's clearly our goal. It could be a short-term goal. It could be, but I think it's more medium to a long-term goal. But I think we are going to come out with a higher preference than we've ever had, and that higher preference will drive a higher demand set, which should enable us to work on yields as we come out at the back end of this. So I think it goes back to, how did people react to the pandemic and how did Delta's brand come through this? And I think from all the research we've done and from all the data that we see that our brand has never been stronger and demand for our products and services has never been stronger on a relative basis. And we're planning on capitalizing on that on the back end of this.
Greg Conrad
Thank you. And then just one quick follow-up, just a cleanup question. I mean, how should we think about refinery sales for the year? Any change versus what you saw in Q4?
Ed
Are you referring to the third-party sales? Is that what you're asking about?
Greg Conrad
Yes. Sorry. Third-party.
Ed
Yes. The phenomenon that you're seeing in the third-party sales is anything we produce and do not exchange for jet fuel, we sell to third parties. Obviously, with our jet consumption being way down, we've had a lot more of those sales to third parties. That is going to likely trend with how we rebuild our network and how much jet fuel we're consuming. I do think it's important to point out that those sales have no margin. If you look in some of the reconciliations in the back of the release, you'll see that those are offset dollar for dollar on the cost side. They're all wrapped into the economics of the refinery, but you should expect those to start trending down as our consumption picks back up and we're exchanging more for our own use.
Gary
Thank you.
Operator
And next we will go to Mike Linenberg of Deutsche Bank.
Mike Linenberg
Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Mike. Hey, Ed, I'd just like to go back on the mandatory COVID test for international arrivals. Are you aware of any potential carve-outs, you know, like for those 24, 48-hour round trips? And if you were to have a vaccine to be vaccinated, would you be precluded from actually having to provide that test on entry?
Ed
Hey, Mike, we're still working through the guidance from the CDC and Okay. We have mentioned, I personally have had a number of conversations with Dr. Redfield on this. We've mentioned the needs to consider some waivers in unusual circumstances where, for example, COVID testing resources are not available, or if there are some relatively short-term, as you mentioned, travel self We're working through the implementation details. I think it's absolutely the right thing to do for the long term for our industry, but it's going to create some short-term hiccups.
Mike Linenberg
Okay, agreed. And then just a question to Glenn and possibly Peter Carter. I know that you had sort of deferred on JetBlue American. What I'm more interested in is it looks like as part of that transaction, It does look like that there's going to be slot divestiture, and that would obviously be at airports that are near and dear to Delta. Are those slots that, from what you know, are those slots that only new entrants can bid on, or are those slots that all carriers can bid on? And if that's the case, is that something that would interest Delta? Thank you.
Glenn
Thank you. So the DMT has not made it clear what the rules are with respect to those slots, but I think it's
Ed
It's suffice it to say that we are deserving in DCA without question because of our market position.
Gary
Very good.
Operator
And now we will go to David Vernon of Bernstein. Hey, good morning.
Hunter
So, Ed or Jerry, could you talk to how – As we move through these next three phases, how and when discretionary costs may come back into the system, I'm wondering if there's going to be a need to prime the pump a little bit on the cost side to prepare for what should be a pretty speedy recovery as vaccinations roll out.
Ed
Well, there will be some, David. We expect, you know, for example, to have reactivation expenses around maintenance and aircraft you know, through the remainder of the year. So we expect that pace to continue. I'm not sure I quite heard the non – was it discretionary or non-discretionary expense?
Hunter
I imagine you guys have curtailed a lot of discretionary expense, whether it's marketing or IT development or systems work or training programs or what have you. I'm just wondering if there's going to be a need to step up that spend ahead of – recovery here in the intervening months?
Ed
Well, I'd prefer to think of it not to pick it up before recovery, but we will have a need to revisit some of the things that we've done. If you take a look, David, at what we're pointing to in terms of incremental costs as we leverage the network, it does look different than what we saw in the second half of 2020. And one of the reasons is, you know, we do expect to have pressure in pockets. We have to be really mindful and balance some of those needs with the realities of the business because we are determined here to turn the profit equation around and to be printing these releases with black ink this year. Hey, David, let me expound on that just a bit. We are, whether it's maintenance expenses, we've got our staffing levels back to where we need to be starting the first of this year. We've restored the pay in terms of some of the pay cuts, the voluntary pay cuts that our employees took last year. So there's a meaningful step up already in the numbers we've given you for the cash burn in the first quarter. to get ready for the recovery. So I'm very comfortable with where we've set up. In fact, if we wanted to continue to run the same cost structure and forego some of those expenses, you'd see our cash burn coming down. You have relatively meaningful levels in the first quarter as well, but we've maintained the same level of cash burn to get ready for the spring.
Hunter
That's helpful. Maybe just as a follow-up, you noted in the release the amount of capex that's come out of the budget over the next couple of years. I'm wondering if there's been a discussion at the board level about goalposts or guideposts for profitability before we go back to renewing the fleet in earnest.
Ed
David, again, I think that question is a little premature. Yes, we talk about that topic with the board. We obviously haven't made any determinations quite yet. The goal we have at the board is very much what we said to you, is that our goal is to get to a cash break-even position for the second quarter and a return to profitability starting in the third quarter. All right, thank you. The pace of that recovery over the next couple of years, obviously, we still have some work to do yet. Okay, thanks.
Jill Greer
Kathy, we're going to have time for one more question from the analysts, if you can cue that up.
Operator
Certainly, and that question will come from Joe Seattle of Credit Suisse.
Gary
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time. Ed, just a quick clarification question regarding your annual corporate travel survey.
Ed
40% of respondents say fully recovered by 2022. Are they referring to their businesses being fully recovered by 2022 or their corporate travel budget being fully recovered by then?
Gary
Or do they see it as one and the same?
Ed
Your corporate travel being backed by that.
Gary
Got it. Okay. Understood. It's helpful.
Hunter
And my second question, it's clear that you're not seeing an elongation of the booking curve yet at this stage, but what about clicks or looks, you know, stopping short of actual bookings, but is there any data like that that you're tracking, analytics on the website, something like that that provides a basis for your recovery outlook beyond Q1 and sort of saying that you have a good shot at P&L breaking into Q3? or are you just hopeful that that's going to be the case? Are there any analytics that you can share with us that maybe give you a better indication? Thank you for the time.
Ed
Absolutely, corporate. Looks are actually doing quite well. We're 40% up quarter over quarter where we were last quarter in terms of looks. And look to book is very low. So people are looking, they're aspiring to travel, and they're just not ready to commit yet. And I think that's what really gives us that sense of, that there will be a time in which people feel comfortable again to travel and that look will turn into a click, turn into a booking. And so we are monitoring that very, very carefully, and we're looking forward to the opportunity to serve these customers as they come back.
Andrew
Thanks for that, Collin.
Jill Greer
That's going to wrap up the analyst portion of this call. I will turn it over to Tim Mayes, our Chief Marketing and Communications Officer.
Glenn
Well, good morning, everybody. I want to thank all the members of the media who have gathered on the call today. Your interest in Delta is not only appreciated, it's never been greater, and we're very pleased today to provide you with an expanded period of time to make sure that we address your questions. I'd also like to thank Ed and Glenn and the members of the Delta Leadership Committee, all of whom are on this call for their involvement as we turn the page on 2020 and optimistically look at 2021. So Kathy, if you could please review the instructions and mention to everyone how they go about asking a question.
Operator
Certainly. And again, ladies and gentlemen, that is star one on your telephone keypad if you'd like to ask a question. Again, as a reminder, if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset or depress your mute function to allow that signal to reach our systems. Again, that is star 1 to ask a question, and we'll pause to allow everyone the opportunity to signal. And we'll go first to Allison Sider of the Wall Street Journal.
Catherine O'Brien
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of the operational issues you saw around the holidays, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, you know, what, looking back, do you think were kind of the root causes of that? And, you know, what, if any, changes you've made to prevent the same sort of thing from happening again?
Ed
Sure, Allie. We certainly had a much better Christmas holiday than the Thanksgiving break. There were a number of factors going on in the staffing levels of the company with a And you couple that with COVID and some of the exposures, which everyone's seeing, the no-fly capability of some of our staffing, which came in. We learned from that for Thanksgiving. We made some pretty aggressive changes in December in terms of getting the schedule fine-tuned to anticipate that. And we were in really, really good shape. And then we got hit with a massive storm in Minneapolis on the 23rd of December. which cost us probably a couple of hundred cancels, incremental cancels over that next couple-a-day time frame, which was concerning but unavoidable, unfortunately. The most important thing in all of that is the Delta people, and I know there were some bloggers out there wondering whether the Delta pilots weren't doing everything. Again, the Delta pilots were amazing through the whole holiday period and showing up and getting the flights going and giving up their holidays and their time away with the families to help the company out. So it had nothing to do with pilot staffing at all. The other thing was the number of customers who may have been canceled. While it's higher than we've been expecting, the vast majority of the people got to their destination within hours of their original schedule time. So the team did a very, very good job. and that issue was pretty much over with by the 26th, 27th. And that really manifested itself in the record net promoter score we had in the December time period. So as Ed mentioned, despite the fact that we had to cancel some flights, our average lateness was not very late versus the original itinerary, and our customers over the holiday period were quite satisfied posting record high net promoter scores.
Catherine O'Brien
And just to follow up, is there anything you can share about what you're seeing in terms of, you know, crew member infections at this point? You know, I know the pilots have said they saw some big increases in COVID infections, you know, in the late fall. I'm just wondering if you're still seeing that or if that's sort of been brought under control.
Ed
Well, you know, we're a microcosm of the country, and as the pandemic unfolds, has accelerated over the course of the last few months. You know, it's accelerated across airline employees as well. But, you know, our team's doing a real job. They're not seeing it spread within the company when they're at work. It's unfortunate it's in community is where people are getting sick. So I'd say every work category of the company is experiencing an increase in exposures, as we've all seen over the last couple of months.
Operator
Thank you. And now we will go to Tracy Lucinski of Reuters. Hi, good morning. I'm wondering if you think we'll see COVID-19 testing being required for domestic flights?
Ed
Tracy, I don't think so.
Jill Greer
Okay.
Operator
And just to follow up with a separate question, Should we expect to see a deal with Boeing this year for a 737 MAX order?
Ed
We're not going to speculate on that.
Operator
Okay. Thank you.
Ed
Sorry.
Operator
Okay. Now we'll go to Claire Wushie of Financial Times. Hi. I know Delta has been – growing its own list of people who are not able to fly in the airline, but I was wondering if the company had any visibility into whether more names are being added to the federal no-fly list based on last week's capital attacks.
Ed
Claire, the last part was a little garbled. Is your question, are we adding increased numbers to our no-fly list based on federal information?
Jill Greer
I was asking whether Delta knows if names are being added to the federal no-fly list based on the Capitol attacks.
Ed
We certainly know that the TSA is looking very carefully at those that were in the Capitol building, the rioters. And we are working closely with them, and I do anticipate if the TSA – is able to identify individuals, you'll have people added to the no-clog, there's no question about it.
Operator
Thank you. And next we have Leslie Joseph of CNBC.
Leslie Joseph
Hi, good morning, everybody. You mentioned that there was a lot of pent-up demand and also the hoarding of points from the frequent flyer program. What happens if A lot of people try to redeem at once. Is that something that you're expecting based on search data and other things? And then also you mentioned a recovery second half of the year. Where are you seeing demand? Are those sort of outdoor social distancing destinations showing more strength than others? Where is the demand coming from? Thanks.
Ed
Well, clearly leisure destinations are at the forefront of the recovery right now, and I think it doesn't matter whether or not it's a beach or a mountain. That's where people are headed at this point in the recovery. And then your second question was?
Leslie Joseph
About the points. So if people are hoarding, yes. What happens if everyone, and are you foreseeing that they will or are trying to redeem?
Ed
We are. We are happy and really are indifferent whether or not people who are booking are using points or whether or not they're using actual dollars or whether they're using e-credits. What we are anticipating is that all of those will increase, and we have plenty of capacity to meet that demand as we head to the second half of 21. So we're hoping that all of the above happens. I'm talking to American Express, good partners there. it's clear that people place great value on their, on their loyalty points with Delta and like to see the values grow over time. And so while they, they've been in the pandemic, um, we've, we've seen redemption down, uh, for points because, you know, flying levels are down, but they haven't stopped, you know, the spending on the card, our co-brand card is as good as not, uh, better than almost any other product card Amex has. So it's, uh, has great appeal and we expect it's not going to be a run-on-the-bank type situation that you're referring to.
Leslie Joseph
Okay. You could just adjust the awards, the availability and things like that too, right?
Ed
Absolutely. We're looking forward to that day.
Operator
Thank you. And now we will go to David Keong of the Associated Press. David.
Ed
Hi, real quick question. Unless I missed it, I had not heard an update in a while on the number of people you have banned for not wearing face masks. Is there a current figure on that and any changes in cabin policies? I think that number is north of 800 at this point, David. Okay. Very good. And then how many of those are since last week, do you know? A number, not a huge number, but a number.
Operator
And now our question will come from Kelly Yamaguchi of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Kelly Yamaguchi
Hi there. I wanted to ask about profit sharing with no profit sharing, you know, next month from 2020 results. I was wondering what impact you think that may have on employees and satisfaction. And also wondering if you think there's a possibility of profit sharing a year from now.
Ed
Well, I think everyone is aware why there's not profit sharing in this year. And I can tell you employee satisfaction is at a very high level. I mentioned during the script, Kelly, that we just were awarded the seventh best employer by Glassdoor. Glassdoor is an entirely... employee-driven acknowledgement. The company doesn't have any input or any insight into that. It's purely by employees talking about their employers. So if that gives you a sense for the sentiment, the sentiment is very strong. The volunteerism with the tens of thousands of people that have taken unpaid leave, the absence over the year indicates that. We've been mindful of the fact that there won't be a profit-sharing payout and We're providing added services and assistance around financial health and financial well-being and credit counseling and other services to employees that may need it. We're going to be ramping. We have been ramping up and talking about it. We're going to continue to talk about it on an ongoing basis, going forward with our people, providing that support. And relative to next year's private sharing, I certainly hope we'll be paying it. It's hard to speculate it now. It's just only a couple weeks into the year. But I'm hopeful that we'll be paying it.
Kelly Yamaguchi
Great. I also heard mentioned during the call so far about the value of connecting economics, but also the importance of point-to-point and focus cities. I was wondering how you expect the Atlanta Hub's role to be different going forward in terms of size or the role in your network.
Ed
Well, clearly the size of Atlanta is relative to the size of demand in the United States. As the world's largest hub, it is a microcosm of global airline demand. So we expect it to recover as the airline continues to recover. The two things that I would say is that we're going to continue to work on average gauge, which I think is something that's really important and that we'll be bringing more details about. But bigger airplanes with better products and services, And so I think you'll see the departures get back to 2019 levels at some point in the future. But before that, you'll probably see the employments start to rise dramatically and using really the gauge lever as much as the departure level. This is, as you know, our most valuable asset here in Atlanta, and we're very proud to be a part of the Atlanta community. And it has led us in the rebuild of our network so far.
Kelly Yamaguchi
Great. Thank you so much.
Operator
Our next question will come from Ted Reed of Forbes.
Andrew
Thank you for taking the questions. I have two questions for Glenn. First one, Glenn, when you said earlier Delta is ready when you are talking about when you come back, were you talking about in terms of capacity or something else?
Ed
I think that when customers are wanting to fly on Delta, we'll be ready for them. And I know you're – I know you for a long time, and I know you remember that slogan. So it's harkening back to a little bit of history there with Delta.
Andrew
So you're just saying you'll be ready, though. You'll have the capacity suited to what you anticipate customers will want. Correct. All right. Secondly, we've been talking a lot about middle seats being empty and being, you said, a powerful tool. How are you measuring what the value – how can you tell that these are so valuable to your customers?
Ed
Our revenue premiums have never been higher, and so customers are valuing the delta difference, and I think that's how we're looking at that is when you look at our revenue production versus our competitive set, despite having the least amount of sellable capacity, our revenues have kept pace. So I think we're seeing not only the highest share of corporate demand we've ever had, albeit on depressed levels, but a real differentiator when customers are shopping to want to fly Delta versus some of our competitors.
Andrew
And you think that's due to middle seats being in fees longer than others?
Ed
I think it's an entire Delta difference. Clearly, that's a piece of it. But, you know, whether or not it's the Delta Care standard, whether or not it's the Delta people, which are really always at the heart of it, but this is one component of ensuring that Delta is seen as the brand you want to associate with.
Andrew
All right, thank you. I appreciate it.
Operator
And now we'll go to Don Gilbertson of USA Today.
Jill Greer
Hi, good morning. I also have questions on your middle C policy. Ed and Glenn, I know you both said no decision has been made yet, but Glenn, your comment about in the second phase of the middle C to be a very powerful tool sounds to me at least like you're certainly leaning towards unblocking them. A, is that a fair assumption? B, Can you talk to us about the timing of this decision? When will you decide whether they are blocked beyond March 30th?
Ed
Thank you. Dawn, as you said, no, I would not say that's a fair assumption. What we've said is that when the demand returns, which is that next inflection point, that will inform our decision around what to do with the middle seats. So we've not made any decisions to unblock them post-March 30th.
Jill Greer
But can you give us a sense of when will you make that decision? Because pretty soon, I know the booking curve is still short, but you're kind of optimistic about summer. So will you make that decision in the next month, the next few weeks, a couple months? Can you give us any sense of that, please?
Ed
Well, we continue to monitor it on a regular basis. It's not imminent. We have some bit of time. But it's going to be informed by customer sentiment, demand, You know, we have, in addition to the military, we have a lot of other states still on our planes. And confidence in travel relative to COVID and vaccine deployment. So, you know, it's not a clear line, and there's a lot that has to go into that. We know that it's been an important, not the only, but one of the important reasons why Delta has has been able to continue to earn an even higher revenue premium during this past year than we've historically had. And so we want to be very careful as to how we make that decision.
Operator
Thank you very much. And now we will go to Skiff's Edward Russell. Thank you.
Hunter
Hi, yes.
Gary
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the changes in the competitive environment, American JetBlue Alliance, the Northeast, and then how you intend to respond to that.
Ed
You know, I think we're very confident in our products and services, and we compete well against both those carriers individually, and I'm sure we'll compete very well against them together. So we have a lot of confidence in our products and services in the Northeast.
Andrew
Okay.
Hunter
And then there's also been some expansion of some of your focus cities, Raleigh, Durham, Austin. Does Delta plan to return there and compete there as well?
Ed
Focus cities will be an important part of our portfolio moving forward, and we've continued to work on making sure that we have the right capacity in those cities that demand returns. And so we're looking forward to demand continuing to return in all of our focus cities. Thank you.
Operator
And now we will go to Robert Silk of Travel Weekly.
Andrew
Thanks for taking my call.
Glenn
A couple questions. Do you see CDC giving any indication, I know that A4A had called for, wanted testing, you all wanted testing to be put in place, but in exchange a rollback of travel bans. Any indication that that could be next coming?
Ed
Your question, I'm sorry, was a bit garbled. Could you repeat that? We're having a hard time with some of our communications this morning.
Andrew
Can you hear me a little better now?
Ed
Yeah. Okay.
Glenn
So the question is, any indication or sense from the federal government or CDC that with this blanket testing requirement that there could be a rollback of travel bans
Ed
which is something that the airlines have called for. And I'll also follow the other, another question.
Glenn
Is any sense that vaccines ultimately could be included in the mix if you're vaccinated, it relieves testing requirements or it could be an either or?
Ed
We're still working with the CDC on the specific testing strategy and deployment. This is something that we at Delta endorse. I know our industry similarly endorses. We would like to see the travel restrictions lifted once the testing protocols are in place, and that will be a decision by the new administration, is my understanding, when they take office. But I think by having the testing protocols in place, it then gives to the regulatory authorities to start to lift the bans, which is why we endorse the testing strategy. Your question relative to vaccines, yes, obviously once vaccines are at scale, we would hope that vaccination evidence would supplant the need to show a test result. But, of course, we're still working with the authorities on that. Okay, thanks.
Glenn
Kathy, we have time for one final question for the group, please.
Operator
Certainly, and that will come from David Swatnick of Business Insider.
Gary
Hey, everyone. How are you? Thanks for the question. I was just wondering about the phases, the three phases that Glenn outlined earlier. You know, with that timing in mind and with the responses that you've gotten from your corporate travelers, is Delta still expecting, you know, a recovery to 2019 revenue and travel levels in line with the rest of the industry with the, I think it was 2023 or 2024 that IATA and A4A was previously forecasting, or has that moved up pretty much?
Ed
Again, I'm sorry. It was hard to hear the question. Let me take a shot at it. The information we shared on the call about corporate travel is the sentiment we're getting from our own customers. As you are aware, we are the largest carrier of corporate travel amongst the U.S. carriers, so I think we have probably some of the best insights as compared to IATA or any other group. I don't know how they determine what 2023 or 2024 looks like. I wouldn't place too much confidence in that. But what our corporate travel managers are telling us is that 50% expect it to be fully backed by 2023. The other 50% is largely uncertain, but we expect a meaningful amount of that travel to return as well.
Gary
So does Delta have a forecast for when we'll return to 2019 travel levels?
Ed
The numbers we're comparing are 2019 travel volumes, yes. Okay. Thanks.
Glenn
Thank you, David. With that, we'll turn it over to Ed to make some final comments. Again, thank you, everybody, for your time this morning.
Ed
Well, thanks, Tim. Just in closing, I think you can all appreciate that 2020 was a difficult year, but we're on a recovery path. We see the start of it beginning to crystallize here, particularly with the vaccine development. And as you've heard earlier from Glenn and Gary, I'm confident that we've got the foundation in place to return Delta to revenue growth, profitability, and free cash flow generation. We're committed to keeping our culture intact and our employees engaged. We'll continue to listen to our customers and put them first in order to further enhance their experience on Delta. increase their loyalty, and drive affinity towards our brand. We're very focused on innovation, which is allowing us not only to enhance the customer experience and drive efficiency, but also to tackle the big challenges that still lie ahead for us. We'll remain very focused on cost performance. We talked a lot about that during the call, to ensure that the leisure-led demand environment that emerges will be able to respond to it. And finally, we're committed to reducing debt, strengthening our balance sheet and creating long-term shareholder value, and allowing our owners to participate in future upside without solution. We have the very best employees in the industry, and we're ready to see this strategy through, which gives me optimism, confidence in our ability to thrive and emerge as the industry leader. So thanks again for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you soon.
Operator
And that concludes today's conference. We thank you for your participation today.
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