By Susan Carey
The four largest U.S. airlines said Monday that they had
canceled a combined 74,500 flights in the first two months of this
year due to extreme winter weather, with Delta Air Lines Inc.
saying it had taken a $90 million hit to revenue as a result.
Speaking at a J.P. Morgan aviation conference in New York on
Monday, Ed Bastian, Delta's president, said the storms forced the
airline to cancel 17,000 flights in the period, and the revenue hit
translated to a pretax loss of $55 million. But he said Delta
expects to post a net profit in the first quarter.
The Atlanta-based carrier, the nation's third-largest by
traffic, expects its first-quarter unit revenue--the amount it
takes in for each passenger flown a mile--to be up 3% to 4%,
compared with the year-ago period, he said.
United Continental Holdings Inc. Vice Chairman Jim Compton,
speaking at the same conference, said United canceled 23,000
flights in January and February due to the weather, 90% of them
smaller aircraft flown by its regional partners. Weather-driven
cancellations reduced the carrier's capacity in the two months by
about two percentage points. United, based in Chicago, is the
second-largest airline by traffic.
American Airlines Group Inc. said it scrubbed 28,000 flights in
those two months, an increase of 164% from the year earlier.
American said it expects to disclose the impact to its
profitability in early April. On Monday, the company said the
cancellations had a slightly positive impact on unit revenue, but
had a large negative impact on unit cost and first-quarter
profitability.
Unit revenue in the first quarter is expected to rise 2% to 4%
compared with a year ago, said American, now the No. 1 airline by
traffic since its December 2013 merger with US Airways.
Southwest Airlines Co. canceled 4,000 flights in January and
2,500 in February, Tammy Romo, the chief financial officer, said at
the J.P. Morgan conference. Southwest, which is No. 4 by traffic,
expects its first-quarter unit revenue to be up about 3% compared
with a year ago, Ms. Romo said. The Dallas airline offered 2.2%
less capacity in the first two months than a year ago.
Separately, American and JetBlue Airways Corp. said Monday that
they intend to terminate a four-year-old agreement in which they
shared passengers through one-stop bookings and check-in, known as
"interline" agreements, on a limited number of flights out of
Boston and New York.
In a joint news release, the companies said they would no longer
accept interline sales for travel on the other carrier, effective
Monday. And beginning April 1, their reciprocal frequent-flier
program accrual agreement will end. All American AAdvantage miles
and JetBlue TrueBlue points already accrued through the partnership
will be credited to passengers' accounts and won't be affected,
they said.
When the two airlines formed their partnership in April 2010,
the move was seen as a way of shoring up American's diminished East
Coast network by letting American offer its passengers travel on
more than two dozen domestic routes from Boston and New York's John
F. Kennedy Airport, which the larger airline didn't serve. JetBlue
passengers could fly on more than a dozen American international
routes from New York and Boston.
But the December 2013 merger with US Airways gave American a
robust East Coast route network. A JetBlue spokesman said Monday
that the company was informed by American that it intended to end
the relationship. "While we are not surprised in light of the
recent merger, we will work with American to minimize the customer
impact," he said.
JetBlue has interline and code-sharing partnerships and some
frequent-flier tie-ins with 31 other mostly international airlines
that want access to its leading positions at New York's Kennedy
Airport and Boston. Those carriers want access for their passengers
to JetBlue's domestic and Caribbean network. And JetBlue customers
get the opportunity to book seats to world-wide destinations on
JetBlue's partners.
Write to Susan Carey at susan.carey@wsj.com