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US Airlines See Slow Recovery on Horizon
US airlines presenting at yesterday's JP Morgan Aviation, Transportation & Defense Conference in New York (presentations available via webcast) agreed that they see signs of a nascent industry recovery but that they will maintain cost and capacity discipline for now. "We're clearly seeing signs of economic recovery and premium and corporate travelers returning," UAL Corp. CFO Kathryn Mikells said, adding, "The return of higher quality traffic, combined with the significant reductions in capacity that we undertook in 2009, has really begun to improve our relative revenue results." American Airlines Executive VP-Finance and Planning and CFO Tom Horton said first-quarter mainline passenger RASM will be up 6.5%-7.5% year-over-year, while Continental Airlines Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Smisek said CO is "seeing business travel begin to return." Delta Air Lines agreed that corporate sales trends are improving, though its system capacity at the end of the first quarter will be down 4%-5% year-over-year. President Ed Bastian said DL will "continue to maintain that level of capacity restraint."
READ MORE: ATW Daily News
