Delta Air Lines has reduced his financial prediction during the first three months of the year on Monday and said that the growing economic concerns among companies and consumers had reduced the demand for domestic journeys.
The warning from the airline was the last sign that the US economy, or at least perceptions of it, partly weakened due to changes in the federal policy announced by President Trump.
Delta said that it now expected that the quarterly turnover would rise at least 3 percent compared to a year ago, for a minimum profit of 7 percent that it had projected only two months earlier. The share price of Delta, which fell by more than 5 percent in regular trade on Monday, fell by an additional 12 percent in -detailed trade after it had published the update.
“The prospects were influenced by the recent reduction of consumer and business confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty, which stimulates softness in domestic demand,” the airline said in a securities application. The airline published the update in addition to a presentation that is planning to deliver on Tuesday at the JP Morgan Industrials Conference.
In addition to weakened trust, Delta said that fewer passengers booked flights in the short term. But it added that her expectations for revenue growth of high-end trips, international flight and loyalty programs were unchanged.
The bad news was not a complete surprise. A financial analyst, Savanthi Syth from Raymond James, said last week in a note that the airline had probably lost some speed in February due to a delay in government trips, bad weather and customer fear after a plane operated by a Delta -subsidiary reversed after the landing in Toronto.
Yet Mrs Syth said that the demand for flights seemed to remain strong during the spring break and that other airlines had not been able to make a profit at the expense of Delta.
Although some airlines have recently confronted different challenges, Delta and some others have benefited from a strong demand for premium aircraft seats and international flights.
Delta said in January that it had collected more than $ 15.5 billion in income in the last three months of last year, a record. At the time, the CEO, Ed Bastian, said that Delta was on schedule to “deliver the best financial year in Delta's 100-year history.” Last month it said that employees would receive an average of five weeks of wages in profit sharing.
But the economic fears have started to grow in the last few weeks in the midst of the fear of a trade war. Wall Street had the worst day of the year of the year after Mr Trump refused to exclude the possibility that his policy would cause a recession.
Other large carriers, including American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, are also planned to present updates at the JP Morgan conference on Tuesday.
