Low Fuel Costs Help JetBlue's Profit Rise
July 26 2016 - 12:10PM
Dow Jones News
JetBlue Airways Corp. said its second-quarter earnings rose 18%
and the discount carrier continued to benefit from low fuel
costs.
Shares, down 18% this year, rose 7.5% to $18.57 in recent
trading as per-share earnings beat expectations.
Robin Hayes, JetBlue's chief executive, in an interview with The
Wall Street Journal, also said the New York discount carrier is
considering adding its first routes to Europe.
JetBlue also said that it placed orders for 30 single-aisle A321
planes from Airbus Group SE, some of which will be used for
JetBlue's premium Mint service that flies on transcontinental
routes and to the Caribbean.
Over all, JetBlue reported a profit of $180 million, or 53 cents
a share, up from $152 million, or 44 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue increased 1.9% to $1.64 billion amid 10% growth in
passenger traffic that helped offset an 8.8% decline in average
fares.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share profit of
49 cents and revenue of $1.65 billion.
Passenger unit revenue—a measure of sales per seat flown a
mile—declined 11%.
JetBlue reported that capacity expanded by 11%. However, the
percentage of seats filled, or load factor, declined by 0.6
percentage point to 85%.
Operating expenses per seat mile, excluding fuel and
profit-sharing, fell 1%. Jet Blue said its fuel prices declined by
a third.
Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 26, 2016 11:55 ET (15:55 GMT)
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