Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Airlines September Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Jen, 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. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Julie Stewart, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you.

thank you jen good morning everyone and thanks for joining us for our september quarter 2021 earnings call joining us from atlanta today our ceo ed bastion our president glenn hauenstein our cfo dan jenke and ed will open the call with an overview of delta's performance and strategy glenn will provide an update on the revenue environment and our brand momentum and dan will discuss cost fleet in our balance sheet similar to last quarter's call we've scheduled today's call for 90 minutes to make sure we have plenty of time for questions For analysts, we ask you please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up so that we can get to as many analysts as possible. After the analyst Q&A, we will move to our immediate questions, after which Ed will provide a brief closing statement. 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 and dealt with SEC filings. We 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 over to Ed.

Well, thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone. Appreciate you joining us this morning. The September quarter marked another important milestone in our recovery. We achieved our first quarterly profit since the start of the pandemic with a pre-tax result of $216 million. and a pre-tax margin of nearly 3% despite still missing one-third of our revenue base compared to the same period in 2019. We saw a full return of domestic consumer travel to 2019 levels as our customers safely returned to the skies and our people delivered industry-leading operational performance through a very busy summer, once again showing why they are the best in the business. I want to thank every member of the Delta team for your hard work and dedication during the truly historic summer. where we face the challenges of standing up our operation after such unprecedented disruption. I'd also like to recognize the Delta teams who played a central role in transporting 10,000 Afghan refugees that were evacuated from harm's way in Afghanistan over the last couple of months and delivering needed supplies. It was an amazing effort that involved everyone from Delta's flight crews to operations control, to government affairs, to our charter and fleet team. Our revenue recovery in the September quarter reached 66% of 2019 levels, progressing from 51% in the June quarter and just 25% at the start of this year. This was led by strong consumer demand, growing improvement in business and international travel, and reflected the resilience of some of our diverse revenue streams, which are already back to or higher than pre-pandemic levels. While the recovery in business travel paused in August and early September as case counts increased, Demand has picked up since Labor Day. Last week was our top corporate revenue booking week since the start of the pandemic. And with the announcement that U.S. borders will open in November, bookings from Europe and Brazil to the U.S. are rapidly improving. The third quarter results reflect Delta's differentiated position in the industry and a continued focus on executing our customer-centric strategy. This strategy is rooted in providing best-in-class service to our customers, strengthening preference for our brand, and while at the same time creating a simpler, more efficient operation. At the heart of our brand promise is operational reliability. Restoring our operations safely and reliably with a strong commitment to cleanliness remains our top priority, and we're proud to be leading the industry in all key operational metrics through the summer as well as year to date. One important indicator is what we call brand perfect days, those days when we don't experience a single cancellation across our mainline and regional operations. I'm happy to report that we have delivered 116 brand perfect days in 2021, which are on par with pre-pandemic levels as our people are delivering outstanding reliability. We're delivering on our commitment not just to return our service levels to pre-pandemic performance, but to exceed those levels by the end of this year. A key component is staffing, and we have added 8,000 people to the Delta team this year. This new talent is helping us build the airline of the future, which includes a focus on improving diversity and representation across all levels of our workforce. Our culture of putting our people and our customers first is building stronger preference for the Delta brand. At its core, the Delta brand stands for connection, creating unique relationships with our customers, driving strong engagement, higher loyalty, and a sustained revenue premium to the industry. More customers are engaging with Delta than ever before, driving record downloads of our Fly Delta app and record sign-ups for our SkyMiles loyalty program. Our Delta American Express Co-brand program continues to show strong resilience with card acquisitions nearly 95% restored and card spend 115% recovered to 2019 levels. As a result, remuneration from American Express in the September quarter exceeded 2019 levels, totaling just over a billion dollars in the quarter, demonstrating the durability of our brand preference as we continue to deepen our customer relationships. Our revenue premium and our customer satisfaction have not just endured, but have strengthened through the pandemic with both above 2019 levels. These outcomes are a true validation of our customer-centric strategy and people-first approach. Same time, we're also building a simpler, more efficient airline. As we rescale the operations and refresh our fleet, we will unlock efficiency gains while also improving our product and customer experience. Dan will speak more about our fleet strategy and cost outlook shortly. As we look ahead, it's clear that the recovery will continue to be choppy, but we see a number of encouraging trends. Restoring the remaining one-third of our revenue base is dependent on further business and international demand improvement. In the September quarter, domestic corporate volume was 40% recovered, up 10 points from the June quarter, with the spike in case counts delaying office reopenings We did not see the progression we had expected at the start of the quarter, particularly after Labor Day. But as the variant recedes, business travel has picked up over the last month with volumes now reaching the highest level we've seen in the recovery. In the last week, our domestic business volume was close to 50% restored. We expect continued improvement as offices reopen at the start of the new year, and we anticipate meaningful acceleration in business travel starting at that point. We hear regularly from our corporate customers that they're ready to get back to travel, see their clients face-to-face to renew business relationships and develop new ones. That sentiment is coming through loud and clear in our most recent corporate surveys. More than 90% of our respondents mentioned that they expect travel volumes in the December quarter to either be the same or outpace September quarter. Nearly 60% of our accounts are telling us that they've already reopened their offices with an additional 10% expected to open their offices before year end. We are also seeing improving trends internationally, spurred by the decision to lift 212F. This decision marks a critical moment in our road to international recovery, and we thank the Biden administration and our supporters in Washington for their work to reopen travel to the US. Thanks to this important policy change, many families are going to be reunited this holiday season for the first time in almost two years. Against this backdrop, we anticipate our revenue momentum to show good progress through the December quarter, finishing the month of November and December combined at a 75% recovery. This 10-point improvement from current levels is driven by offices reopening, international restrictions easing, and our expectation that consumer strength continues into the holidays. So putting the year in context, We started at only 25% of our business restored, total business for the company, and we'll end the year at 75% restored. While choppy, there is a clear underlying momentum in our company that gives us optimism as we go into 22. As those fundamentals improve, we also see fuel prices continue to rise, which will pressure our ability to remain profitable in the December quarter. At present time, we're expecting a modest loss in the fourth quarter, with crude prices driving that up nearly 60% year-to-date and more than 15% just over the last month. While we operate in a volatile and uncertain environment, I have the utmost confidence in our return to sustained profitability as the recovery progresses into the new year. As we continue to restore our airline, our actions are guided by three near-term priorities. First, to deliver for our customers, providing the great service excellence they expect from Delta. We've worked hard to get our staffing levels in place, reducing wait times at our reservation centers, improved self-service options, the return of food and beverage options on board, upgraded Wi-Fi and in-flight entertainment, and the full reopening of our Delta Sky Club network in July of 2021. We continue to deliver on the need for flexibility with policy changes and extension of medallion status and SkyMiles benefits into 2023 to give our most loyal customers more flexibility as travel resumes. Our next priority is to rescale our airline efficiently and reliably. We're remaining disciplined about how we're rebuilding our network, prioritizing operations, and matching our supply with demand. A measured approach to restoring capacity is critical to delivering for our customers and to managing through an environment of rising fuel prices. Finally, we're preparing for the future to position Delta for success in the next leg of the recovery and beyond. While restoring capacity in a measured way, we are growing share in key markets with high-value customers. We're making smart investments in our business to elevate the customer experience. That includes technology to enable efficiency and improve our digital capabilities while accelerating construction projects in key airports like LAX, LaGuardia, and JFK. On the balance sheet, we're focused on returning to our investment grade metrics, having experienced firsthand just how important it was to have a strong balance sheet as we entered the pandemic. We're advancing our fleet renewal and opportunistically acquiring aircraft while maintaining flexibility, driving gauge and efficiency that we expect will improve our long-term cost structure and our carbon footprint. Our commitment to being a carbon neutral airline globally differentiates us as we know that customers are choosing brands that they believe in and employees are looking to work for a company that's dedicated to a sustainable future. Carbon neutrality is a fundamental part of our mission and a meaningful step that we can take right now to protect our world for generations to come. We've recently announced our commitment to work with a science-based targets initiative to set a net zero 2050 target and an interim emissions intensity target for our airline operations. in line with the Paris Agreement. This quarter, Delta also announced a 250 million gallon offtake agreement for sustainable aviation fuel on our road to a 10% SAF consumption level by 2030. We also announced plans to join several coalitions, including the LEAF Coalition, the World Economic Forum's Clean Skies Tomorrow, and the UN-led Race to Zero. You'll be hearing more about all of these efforts at our Capital Markets Day on December 16th in New York. The power of our purpose-driven brand, our people, and our strategy position Delta incredibly well for the future. We're building on a strong foundation to extend Delta's leadership position in the years to come and drive long-term value for all of our stakeholders, our people, our customers, our owners, and our communities where we live, work, and serve. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Glenn.