JetBlue Profit Rises on Low Fuel Costs

JetBlue Airways Corp. said profit jumped in its third quarter, the latest air carrier whose profit was catapulted by lower fuel costs—but it also booked a revenue increase that has been much more elusive in the sector.

For the quarter, fuel costs tumbled 34% to $342 million.

The airline said it bumped up the high end of its annual capacity forecast by half a percentage point to a range of 8.5% to 9.5%. Capacity is a closely watched metric in the airline sector on concerns that airlines may be making too many seats available.

And, though revenue climbed, it missed Wall Street expectations by a hair.

Shares of the company were off 2% in premarket trading as investors continued to wave off fuel-driven profits in the sector.

Overall revenue climbed 10%, while JetBlue's unit revenue—the amount it takes in per seat flown a mile—edged down 0.6% in the quarter compared with a year ago, a modest slide compared with other carriers that have posted declines closer to 6% to 8%. Load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, fell 0.9 percentage point to 85.3%.

The company posted a profit of $198 million, or 58 cents a share, up from $79 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed 10% to $1.69 billion.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast per-share earnings of 57 cents a share on revenue of $1.7 billion.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2015 09:35 ET (13:35 GMT)

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