New York (AFP) – Delta Air Lines announced an increase in profits on Thursday, overcoming challenges from a significant information technology outage. The airline anticipates a pullback in travel in November, coinciding with the U.S. elections, but expects demand to rebound afterward.
The airline’s quarterly earnings were impacted by a $380 million loss related to the Crowdstrike outage, which led to approximately 7,000 flight cancellations over five days in July. Most of the financial hit was attributed to customer refunds.
For the quarter, Delta reported profits of $1.3 billion, a 15% increase compared to the same period last year, while revenues rose slightly by 1% to $15.7 billion.
Looking ahead, Delta executives warned of potential disruptions from Hurricane Milton, which struck Florida last night, resulting in the cancellation of 600 flights so far. Nonetheless, the company projects a rise in fourth-quarter profits driven by a 2-4% increase in revenues.
Executives noted that bookings have decreased around the time of the presidential election but characterized this dip as a temporary setback amid overall strong demand. “You have markets that are performing incredibly well with positive momentum in October, and then again, as soon as the week after the election is complete,” said Delta President Glen Hauenstein. “If you took a trend line, you’d see these two weeks just being way off trend.”
In July, Delta had expressed concerns about industry oversupply affecting fares and profitability. However, recent adjustments in capacity by airlines have led to a better balance between demand and supply, according to Hauenstein.
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