Delta Air Lines Boost FY19 Revenue Growth Outlook - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - While reporting financial results for the first quarter on Wednesday, Delta Air Lines (DAL) provided earnings and revenue growth guidance for the second quarter. The company also boosted its revenue growth guidance for fiscal 2019.

For the second quarter, the company now projects earnings in a range of $2.05 to $2.35 per share on adjusted total revenue, excluding refinery sales and DAL Global Services, growth of 6 to 8 percent.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $2.14 per share on revenue growth of 4.7 percent to $12.32 billion for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The company also projects system capacity for the second quarter to grow 4 to 4.5 percent year-over-year.

Additionally, the company said it now expects full-year 2019 revenue growth of five to seven percent, an increase from the prior guidance.

The company also said with the momentum in its business and its American Express contract renewal, it has increased confidence in achieving its full-year plan of top-line growth, margin expansion and double-digit earnings growth.

For the first quarter, the company reported a 4.8 percent increase in total system traffic to 51.62 billion revenue passenger miles or RPMs and 5.0 percent increase in total system capacity to 62.42 billion available seat miles or ASMs from last year. However, total system load factor for the quarter edged down 0.2 percentage points to 82.7 percent.