
What’s good news for airlines is bad news for passengers: Ticket prices are going up.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) reported better than expected third quarter earnings, even though it took a $120 million hit to profits from the brutal hurricane season. Even better, a key measure of fares climbed 2% in the quarter. And the airline said it expects airfares to increase further in the final three months of the year.
‘;
var storytext = document.getElementById(‘storytext’);
var heightToSkip = 0;
function resetValues()
{
totalHeight = 0;
targetChildElement = null;
}
// Check if story is in the blacklist of articles to remove smartassets
// [2017.07.27] Results of a one-off request from r.barbieri
if(BLACKLIST[location.pathname] === true) {
return
}
if(storytext == null)
{
console.log(“Error finding storytext element for SA embed”);
return;
}
for ( i = 0; i 0)
{
heightToSkip -= storytext.childNodes[i].clientHeight;
resetValues();
}
else if(heightToSkip minHeight && targetChildElement != null)
{
//console.log(“total height = ” + totalHeight);
//console.log(“childNode = ” + targetChildElement);
storytext.childNodes[targetChildElement].insertAdjacentHTML(‘afterend’, smartAssetDiv);
smartasset = document.getElementById(‘smartasset-article’);
smartasset.style.float = ‘left’; // allows module to have text float to right
smartasset.style.marginRight =’20px’;
smartasset.style.marginBottom =’25px’;
//console.log(storytext.childNodes[targetChildElement]);
//SMARTASSET.setDivIndex(targetChildElement);
SMARTASSET.setSmartAssetScript();
/* bail out since we’re done */
break;
}
}
/* div with id=”smartassetcontainer”. Sanity check to only embed once */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘div’ && storytext.childNodes[i].id !== “undefined” && storytext.childNodes[i].id === “smartassetcontainer”) {
break;
}
/* div with id=”ie_column” */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘div’ && storytext.childNodes[i].id !== “undefined” && storytext.childNodes[i].id === “ie_column”) {
resetValues();
}
/* embeds from twitter, facebook, youtube */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘div’ && storytext.childNodes[i].classList.contains(’embed’)) {
resetValues();
}
/* cnn video player */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘div’ && storytext.childNodes[i].classList.contains(‘cnnplayer’)) {
resetValues();
}
/* images */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘img’)
{
resetValues();
}
/* images stored in figure tags */
else if (storytext.childNodes[i].nodeName.toLowerCase() === ‘figure’)
{
if(storytext.childNodes[i].clientWidth
Related: Hurricanes will cost Southwest $100 million in revenue
The report comes the day after American Airlines (AAL), the nation’s largest airline, issued improved forecast for the third quarter despite the fact it took a $75 million hit from the hurricanes. The company said that it expects that measure of fares to increase between 0.5% to 1.5% in the quarter, about a half-percentage point better than its earlier guidance.
And guidance from United Continental (UAL) said its fares fell 3.5% to 4%. But that was an improvement from its earlier guidance which warned fares could fall as much as 5%.
Related: Delta flights to offer free in-flight texting
Airlines are benefiting by strong passenger demand for seats. Delta filled nearly 87% of its seats with paying passengers in the third quarter, up 1.5 percentage points from a year earlier.
Airline stocks rose Tuesday after the guidance from American and United, but slipped in early trading Wednesday following Delta’s report.
CNNMoney (New York) First published October 11, 2017: 11:13 AM ET