Delta Air Lines is earning half the industry’s profit. They had a 13.6% operating margin and made $1.3 billion in the last quarter. That’s great – except that both figures are down year-over-year and the airline lowered its guidance for the third quarter as well. Their stock lost 8% of its value at the open on Thursday’s morning’s announcement, though it gained half of that back by the end of the trading day.
The airline’s spin is that there’s too much capacity, and the problem is other airlines, but the industry is correcting itself. In other words, the problem isn’t Delta, and going forward Delta won’t have a problem. I don’t think this actually makes sense.