SWA 1st Qtr Earnings of $26 Million

[Yahtzee]

http://ir.thomsonfn.com/InvestorRelations/PubNewsStory.aspx?partner=9917&product=IR&storyid=111595

"Our first quarter 2004 unit cost increase of 4.3 percent was as expected. Even though we mitigated record high energy costs in first quarter 2004 with hedging gains of $63 million, our average jet fuel price for first quarter 2004 increased 6.4 percent to 79.6 cents per gallon. We remain over 80 percent hedged for the remainder of 2004 with prices capped below $24 per barrel. We are also approximately 80 percent hedged for 2005 with prices capped at approximately $25 per barrel.

"We remain excited about our future growth opportunities and recently exercised options to acquire three more 737-700s in 2005, which brings our current 2005 firm aircraft orders and options to 31 and 3, respectively."

Congrats to all the poolies going to Dallas and best wishes to those who are awaiting the news from the DB.

Yahtz

P.S. Here's the link to the Webcast scheduled for 1130 EST today

http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/financials/investor_relations_index.html

 

[canyonblue]

Oh man I just had to dig up the past................


From Lowecur

That's not too far from the $5M max profit I've predicted. We'll see what happens on the 15th. In either case, I'll be more than happy to discus the Quarters numbers once they are posted. Even if I'm way off base.

Start the song by Genesis....."There must some misunderstanding"

 

[canyonblue]

Another Lowecur moment

I'm sure the 4 cents number doesn' t include the one-time charge of $20M for the reservations system. Take that off, and the net profit is $12M.



CHICAGO (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines on Thursday reported a slightly higher first-quarter profit as soaring fuel costs hurt the low-fare carrier's bottom line.

The Dallas-based airline said earnings rose to $26 million, or 3 cents per share, from $24 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier.

Southwest said its net income included $18 million of expenses for consolidating its reservation operations.

Excluding those expenses, analysts had expected Southwest to earn 5 cents a share, with estimates ranging from 3 cents to 6 cents, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.

 

[SWA/FO]

Right on baby!!!

 

[chase]

Additional note on Res Ctr closing

Approximately 1900 folks were impacted by the closing. Approximately 1100 persons took the compensation package offered by the company and were removed from the payroll. SWA has said they hope to have little or no growth in '04 in employees. Even with 400 pilots + 800 FAs being added, take into account normal attrition (BTW, a recent report showed SWA has an annual turnover rate of around 4% annually, one of the lowest in the industry) & retirements the following numbers are interesting in how costs are kept low:

2002 - employees per airplane - 92
2003 - employees per airplane - 85
2004 - employees per airplane - 78 (based upon zero gain in employees)

That compares very favorable toward other carriers where the numbers are 20-40% higher from what my poor memory can recall. Look forward to gleaming more from the report once it gets posted.

Just as folks have pointed out there were things that took away from our profits (closing of the res centers), what should also be noted but hasn't been released yet is profit-sharing for ALL employees is also removed from this net profit number. If you add back in this figure then obviously we would've exceeded the analysts expectations. Money was removed & placed into an account that currently exceeds $1.9B (yes billion) for all employees, thanks SWA!

cheers,

 

[TexaSWA]

So by using Lowecur's formula this is actually a profit of $44M. Nice Job!