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Delta Air Lines reinstated its profitable outlook for 2025, but at a notably lower expectation than it set six months ago—citing stabilized bookings and consumer confidence that is “slowly starting to climb back.”
Shares of Delta Air Lines took off Thursday following the company's profit outlook.
Delta shares bounced 12% on Thursday following Delta’s second-quarter earnings report, where the airline reinstated its profit outlook.
In April, Delta withdrew its full-year guidance, citing “broad macro uncertainty” following President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement on Apr. 2.
The carrier projects full-year earnings of $5.25 to $6.25 a share, down 15% to 29% from a January forecast of $7.35 a share, when Delta CEO Ed Bastian predicted 2025 would be the carrier’s “all-time best year in our history.”
Delta executives told investors Thursday that bookings have stabilized after a drop in demand earlier this year—with Bastian saying consumer confidence is “slowly starting to climb back.”
The Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index, which includes the “big four” carriers—American, Delta, United and Southwest—is up 11% following Delta’s report, with the other airlines reporting second-quarter results later this month.
Like other major U.S. airlines, Delta has reacted to a decrease in travel demand by pulling back on supply. “We have proactively adjusted capacity to address areas of softness,” Delta president Glen Hauenstein told investors, adding that after industry-wide reductions in flights “we expect unit revenue trends to improve through the back half of the year.”
Bastian said consumer confidence “certainly took a big dip in the early part of the year, and then again in April after the Liberation Day announcements were made, and has been slowly starting to climb back.” He said his carrier’s target consumer has a household income of $100,000 or more, “not, by the way, an elite definition—that’s 40% of all U.S. households,” adding, “We were worried, I think, in the earlier part of the year about the wealth effect, what’s going on in markets and other financial instruments, but that’s corrected itself in the market beyond where it was even at the start of the year.” Bastian said “there seems to be growing optimism” though “clearly we still have a long way to go.”
$15.51 billion. That’s how much adjusted revenue Delta forecasts for 2025, up a hair from Wall Street’s consensus estimates of $15.48 billion.
Whether Trump’s raft of tariffs—delayed until Aug. 1—will dampen consumer confidence later this year.
Delta Pulls Its Full-Year Guidance Due To ‘Broad Macro Uncertainty’ (Forbes)