Yahoo Finance Hawaiian Airlines Withdraws Q1 RASM View on Coronavirus Woes
Hawaiian Holdings, Inc.’s HA wholly-owned subsidiary — Hawaiian Airlines — withdrew expectations for operating revenue per available seat mile (RASM) for the first quarter due to ambiguity surrounding the impact of coronavirus on air travel demand. As of Mar 5, if there are no new net bookings for March, the airline anticipates a 12% decline in the metric in the first quarter. Previously, RASM was expected to decline 4.5-7.5% in the period.
Meanwhile, capacity is still estimated to increase 7.5-10.5% in the quarter. Additionally, adjusted cost per available seat mile, excluding fuel, is projected to decline 1.5-4.5% in the current quarter, unchanged from previous expectation. With fuel prices having declined significantly since the beginning of the year, the carrier now predicts economic fuel cost per gallon to be $1.87 compared with the previous forecast of $1.97.
Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. Price
Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. price | Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. Quote
February Traffic
Simultaneously, Hawaiian Airlines reported traffic figures for February. Traffic (measured in Revenue Passenger Miles or RPMs) increased 6.4% to 1.34 billion in the month. Available Seat Miles (ASMs) rose 13.3% to 1.68 billion in the period. With capacity expansion outpacing traffic growth, load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) declined 520 basis points (bps) to 79.3%.
In the first two months of 2020, the carrier recorded 6.5% rise in RPMs while ASMs increased 10.2%. As a result, load factor was down 290 bps to 81.5%. Passenger count slipped 0.5% on a year-to-date basis, while it decreased 1.6% in February.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Hawaiian Holdings carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space are Ryanair Holdings plc RYAAY, Spirit Airlines, Inc. SAVE and Azul S.A. AZUL, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Ryanair has an impressive earnings history having outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three (miss in one) of the past four quarters. The company has trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 56.3%, on average.
Spirit Airlines has trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 2.8%, on average. The company’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three (in-line earnings in one) of the last four quarters.
Azul has trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 199%, on average.
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