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Airlines Just Miss Record For Revenue And Ten Year High for Profits

For the 2nd quarter 2010, the nine largest airlines collectively reported $1.86 billion in net profits on $31.7 billion in revenues (net profits exclude $713 million for special items). The Q2 revenue was the 2nd highest in history and just…

By Douglas A. McIntyre
Published July 29, 2010, 11:22am ET · 2 min read

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For the 2nd quarter 2010, the nine largest airlines collectively reported $1.86 billion in net profits on $31.7 billion in revenues (net profits exclude $713 million for special items).

The Q2 revenue was the 2nd highest in history and just shy of 2008’s Q2 $33.3 billion record.
The Q2 profits missed the decade high set in 2007 by only $8 million. Q2 revenue and profits were slightly higher than AirlineFinancials.com projected earlier in the month.
American (AMR) as projected was the only major airline to report a loss for the recent Q2.
Based on net income margin performance ex-special items, Alaska (NYSE: ALK) led the industry
at 8.6%. The rest of the airlines were:
US Airways (NYSE: LCC)  8.36%
United NASDAQ: (UAUA)  8.33%
Continental (NYSE: CAL)  6.93%
Southwest (NYSE: LUV)  6.82%
Delta (NYSE: DAL) 6.72%
Air Tran (NYSE: AAI)  5.53%
JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU)  3.19%
American (NYSE: AMR)  -.19%
Average Q2 margin for the industry was 5.87%
See following chart for selected Q2 revenue and income performance.
AirlineFinancials.com expects continued strong performance for the airline industry through at least
the current 3rd quarter.
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Disclosure- The above opinions and comments should not be used to determine the worth of any stock
or investment. At the time of writing, the author and his family did not hold stock and/or derivative
positions in any of the airlines covered in this article.
_____________________________________________________________
Robert Herbst is an independent airline industry consultant. He is the founder of AirlineFinancials.com
which provides airline industry analysis and commentary for major US carriers. In addition to his
consulting work, Mr. Herbst was a commercial pilot from 1969 until January 2010. His aviation experience
and financial background provide a unique analytical perspective into the airline industry.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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