Dj Delta Air Lines Inc. Stock Remains Steady Friday, Underperforms Market

Each week, Benzinga’s Stock Whisper Index uses a combination of proprietary data and pattern recognition to showcase five stocks that are just under the surface and deserve attention.

Investors are constantly on the hunt for undervalued, under-followed and emerging stocks. With countless methods available to retail traders, the challenge often lies in sifting through the abundance of information to uncover new opportunities and understand why certain stocks should be of interest.

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Here's a look at the Benzinga Stock Whisper Index for the week ending Nov. 22:

Delta Air Lines : Reader interest in Delta comes after the company hosted an investor day in New York. Among the items shared at the investor day were goals of mid-teen operating margins, 10% average annual EPS growth and $3 billion to $5 billion in annual free cash flow over the next three to five years.

Delta could also be seeing interest with the new White House administration being ushered in. Delta CEO Ed Bastian recently said President-elect Donald Trump could provide a "breath of fresh air" for the airline sector after years of "overreach." The Biden administration passed various regulations that protected airline consumers, including automatic refunds after canceled flights and a requirement for airlines to disclose all additional fees and taxes upfront.

Delta also announced it will start serving Shake Shack burgers to first-class passengers on some flights.

The carrier’s shares were down over the past week, but remain up over 50% year-to-date. The Benzinga Pro chart below shows the five-day performance.

Copa Holdings, S.A.’s CPA third-quarter 2024 earnings per share of $3.50 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.48 but declined 20.3% year over year. Revenues of $854.7 million lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $860 million and fell by 1.5% year over year due to upbeat passenger revenues.

Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.

Copa Holdings, S.A. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Copa Holdings, S.A. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Copa Holdings, S.A. Quote

Passenger revenues (which contributed 95.8% to the top line) decreased 1.8% from the third quarter of 2023. The downside was mainly led by the last-minute suspension of flights between Panama and Venezuela at the end of July, weaker currencies in Latin America and increased industry capacity in the region. As a result, passenger yield declined 8.7% year over year.

Cargo and mail revenues grew 4.3% to $24.45 million due to higher volumes, partly offset by lower cargo yields. Other operating revenues were $11.88 million, up 8.3% year over year due to higher ConnectMiles revenues from non-air partners.

The operating margin declined 3.3 percentage points from the year-ago quarter.

CPA’s Other Financial Details

On a consolidated basis, Copa Holdings’ traffic (measured in revenue passenger miles) grew 7.6% year over year, and capacity (measured in available seat miles) increased 9.5% from the year-ago quarter. With traffic growth outpacing capacity expansion, the load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) decreased 1.6 percentage points to 86.2% in the reported quarter.

Passenger revenue per available seat miles dropped 10.3% year over year to 10.5 cents. Revenue per available seat mile (RASM) declined 10.1% to 11 cents. Cost per available seat mile dipped 6.2%. Excluding fuel, the metric fell 1.6%. The average fuel price per gallon fell by 13.3% to $2.60.

Total operating expenses increased 2.8% year over year to $681 million due to higher capacity, offset by lower sales, and distribution and fuel costs. Expenses on wages, salaries, benefits and other employee expenses rose 8.7% year over year, whereas maintenance, materials and repairs increased 18.1% year over year. Sales and distribution costs decreased 8% year over year, and fuel costs fell by 5.3% in the same period. Passenger servicing costs grew 13.3% from the year-ago quarter. Other operating and administrative expenses increased 15.2% from the third quarter of 2023.

Copa Holdings exited the third quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $275.25 million compared with $200.64 million at the prior-quarter end. Total debt, including lease liabilities, was $1.9 billion compared with $1.8 billion at the second-quarter end.

CPA ended the third quarter with a consolidated fleet of 110 aircraft, which comprises 67 Boeing 737-800s, 32 Boeing 737 MAX 9s, nine Boeing 737-700s, one Boeing 737 MAX 8 and one Boeing 737-800 freighter.

CPA’s 2024 & 2025 Outlook

CPA’s management now expects consolidated capacity to grow 9% year over year, and the operating margin is expected to come in the range of 21-22%. RASM is now expected to be 11.4 cents (prior view: 11.5 cents).

The load factor is now expected to be 86% (prior view: 86.5%).

Non-fuel unit costs are anticipated to be 5.8 cents. The fuel cost is expected to be $2.67 per gallon, down from the prior guidance of $2.70.

For 2025, the company anticipates increasing its capacity by approximately 7% to 9% compared to 2024, with unit costs, excluding fuel (Ex-Fuel CASM), projected to be around 5.8 cents.

CPA’s Zacks Rank

Copa Holdings currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Q3 Performances of Other Transportation Companies

Delta Air Lines DAL reported third-quarter 2024 earnings (excluding 47 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.50 per share, which fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.56. Earnings decreased 26.11% on a year-over-year basis due to high labor costs.

Revenues of $15.68 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $15.37 billion and increased 1.2% on a year-over-year basis, driven by strong air travel demand. Adjusted operating revenues (excluding third-party refinery sales) totaled $14.59 billion, flat year over year.

Norfolk Southern Corporation’s NSC third-quarter 2024 earnings (excluding $1.6 from non-recurring items) of $3.25 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.10 and increased 22.6% year over year due to lower costs.

Railway operating revenues were $3.05 billion in the quarter under review, lagging the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.09 billion. However, the top line increased 2.7% year over year, with the Merchandise and Intermodal segments registering an improvement in revenues.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services’ JBHT third-quarter 2024 earnings of $1.49 per share outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.42 but declined 17.2% year over year.

Total operating revenues of $3.07 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.04 billion but fell 3% year over year. The operating income for the September quarter decreased 7% year over year to $224.1 million.

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