Must-know: Delta Air Lines’ second quarter earnings

Delta Air Lines’ second quarter earnings

Delta Air Lines started operations as the first commercial agricultural flying company in 1924. This year marks the 85^th anniversary of Delta’s first passenger service which started in 1929. Today, Delta is one of the largest airlines in U.S. providing transportation services for passengers and cargo. It serves almost 165 million customers each year to 225 domestic and 97 international destinations. Delta’s diversified network is supported by international joint ventures with Air France-KLM and Alitalia, Virgin Atlantic, and Virgin Australia. It also has alliances with domestic and foreign airlines including Alaska Airlines, Aeromexico, and GOL. Delta has agreements with several regional carriers operating as Delta Connection and membership with a global airline alliance, SkyTeam.

Delta Airlines (DAL) is one among the top six U.S. airlines accounting for 70% of domestic market share. The other leading U.S. carriers include American Airlines (AAL)—merged with U.S. Airways in 2013, United Continental (UAL), Southwest Airlines (LUV) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU). Delta was named the 2014 Airline of the year by Air Transport World magazine and continues to outperform in terms of operational efficiency as reflected in its latest second quarter earnings release. More details on Delta including segment break-down, key operating metrics, joint ventures, costs, margin, and returns for 2013 are available in the Market Realist series “Investing in Delta Air Lines: A must-know company overview.”

In this series, we’ll see how Delta performed in the second quarter ending June, 2014, improvements in the first half of 2014, and the outlook for the rest of the year. Delta announced its second quarter results on July 23, 2014 when its share price increased to $39.15 from $27.6 at beginning of the year