Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Airlines September Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Matthew, and I'll 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. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Julie Stewart, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our September quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining us from Atlanta today are our CEO, Ed Bastian, our President, Glenn Hallenstein, and our CFO, Dan Jenke. Ed will open the call with an overview of Delta's performance and strategy. Glenn will provide an update on the revenue environment, and Dan will discuss costs in our balance sheet. After the prepared remarks, we'll take analyst questions. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up so that we can get to as many of you as possible. After the analyst Q&A, we will move to immediate questions. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking 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. Please note that page two of the earnings release today outlines the impact of the CrowdStrike-caused outage on our Q3 profitability and unit metrics, consistent with our initial disclosure on August 8th. Now I'll turn the call over to Ed.

Thank you, Julie. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. Before we begin, I want to provide a quick update on Hurricane Milton. The safety of our people, customers, and communities is always paramount. And to that end, we've issued a fee waiver and implemented fare caps for those who need to change their travel plans or fly out of the storm's path. We've also added additional flights and upgaged aircraft into Florida this week to accommodate those evacuating the state. Between yesterday and today, we have canceled approximately 600 flights in total. But we'll have a better sense of the impact as we learn of how our airports fared overnight. Our hearts are with all those in the southeast who have been affected during this storm season. Now turning to our earnings report, earlier this morning we reported our September quarter results consistent with our latest guidance. On an earnings per share basis, our results would have been at the high end of initial guidance, excluding the 45 cent impact from the CrowdStrike-caused outage. Delta continues to lead the industry, operationally and financially, while delivering on our 2024 plan. Year-to-date, our on-time performance is best in the industry, and our completion factor leads the network carriers, even when including the impact of the outage. Financially, we have delivered double-digit operating margins with nearly $3 billion of free cash flow year-to-date. And following the Fitch upgrade in July, our balance sheet now has two investment-grade ratings, and our dividend yield is in line with the S&P 500. Delta's year-to-date profitability is expected to represent 50% of the industry's total profits, with a double-digit return on invested capital that is more than twice the industry average, reflecting the durability of our business model. I'm incredibly proud of the Delta people for delivering these results. I want to thank them for their outstanding work during this busy summer period and their dedication to providing best-in-class service for our customers. Sharing our financial success with our people is a long standing pillar of our culture. With this quarter's financial performance, we've accrued nearly $1 billion year to date towards next February's profit sharing. We expect this will be among our top profit sharing payments in Delta's history and more than the rest of the industry combined. The combination of our industry leading reliability and best in class service from our people has firmly established Delta. as the premium airline of choice empowers our brand momentum. The new Delta One Lounge in JFK has been an incredible success with very high customer satisfaction. Building on this momentum, this morning we opened our new Delta One Lounge at LAX and we will be opening our third Delta One Lounge in Boston this December and a fourth in Seattle early next year. By year end, Delta will have over 700,000 square feet across 55 Sky Clubs and three Delta One lounges, a one-of-a-kind position across many of the largest airports in the country. On board, we are enhancing the customer experience with the rollout of our popular Delta Sync product to more than 330 aircraft, offering SkyMiles members a personalized experience that provides a smart TV on the CPAC screen. More than 90% of our domestic mainline network now offers fast, free Wi-Fi, And this summer, we began introducing fast-free Wi-Fi, excuse me, fast-free in-flight Wi-Fi on long-haul international flights. Across the network, Delta's advantages continue to build. Core hubs are nearing full restoration as we close out the year, and we are harvesting the investments we've made in coastal gateways to improve margins and support profitable international growth. Around the world, we're continuing to develop our JV partnerships. and leveraging our strengths. Our recently announced summer 2025 transatlantic schedule will build on our strong performance in our largest and most profitable international region. As brand preference continues to grow, we are driving deeper levels of engagement, and our SkyMiles membership is attracting a younger consumer. We have seen a significant evolution in our active member base post-COVID, with 3 million more active members under 40 years of age more than doubling member engagement with non-air partnerships, allowing us to earn a higher share of wallet. Deeper engagement with Delta drives higher customer satisfaction, reinforces loyalty, and creates greater lifetime customer value. Turning to our outlook, consumers are continuing to prioritize premium experiences, and our core customer base is in a healthy financial position, with travel remaining a top spend category. Corporate travel continues to improve, and Delta is well positioned as the business carrier of choice. And importantly, domestic supply growth continues to rationalize. Across much of the industry, there has been an accelerated pace of change, and we are encouraged by the actions the industry is taking to improve profitability and returns. In the December quarter, the improved revenue trends we saw in the month of September are continuing. And we expect to grow earnings 30% over last year with pre-tax income of $1.4 billion, which would mark one of the best, if not the best, fourth quarters in our history. With this, our full year outlook for earnings is expected to be around the midpoint of our initial $6 to $7 EPS guidance from the start of the year, excluding the 45 cent impact from the CrowdStrike-caused outage. As we approach the end of our three-year plan that we laid out in late 2021, we have delivered consistent financial performance, restoring our financial foundation while navigating ever-changing macro and industry environments from a position of strength. Our performance is a testament to the durability we are creating at Delta, built on years of investing in our people and our product while continuing to restore our balance sheet strength. Brett KenCairn, Delta has built unmatched competitive advantages and structurally improved our business for the long term. Brett KenCairn, Next month at our investor day we will introduce an updated long term financial framework that builds on our durability and reflects the opportunities that we see ahead to create sustainable long term value for our owners. Brett KenCairn, As we approach our 100 year anniversary next year i've never been more excited about delta's position and the opportunity that lies ahead. Thank you again. And with that, let me hand it over to Glenn for more details on our commercial performance.