Delta Airlines는 정유소 소유권을 통해 연료를 절감합니다(2022)

The rising cost of fuel is a concern for Delta Air Lines, but the Atlanta-based carrier enjoys a benefit few other airlines in the world can claim: Its own oil refinery. Delta will see a benefit of 20 cents per gallon of jet fuel from its refinery, which acts as a hedge against the spike in fuel. In particular, the refinery supplies fuel for Delta's York operations, but Chief Financial Officer Daniel Janki said Monroe Energy's output acts as a 40-50 percent fuel hedge across Delta's network. In the first quarter, the refinery knocked about 7 cents off each gallon of jet fuel Delta consumed. When Delta first bought the Trainer, Pa., refinery from Conoco Philips — now Philips 66 — in 2012, analyst opinions were mixed. Some argued it was a stroke of genius on the airline's part, while others said it was too far afield from Delta's core operations to make sense for an airline with no experience in selling or marketing petroleum products. The years since have been up and down for the refinery but now, with oil prices spiraling up in the wake of the Ukraine war, the refinery is proving its worth. The refinery generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter, compared with $48 million in the same quarter in 2019, Delta said in its first-quarter results. About 80 percent of its output is diesel and gasoline, prices of which have surged. "Our Monroe refinery provides a unique benefit, acting as a partial hedge to elevated cracks," Janki said. "This is especially true with New York Harbor Jet cracks, where our production at Monroe provides 100 percent offset." Delta so far has not faced any pushback from passing on its increased fuel costs to consumers. Fuel costs almost 30 percent more than it did in the fourth quarter of last year. Consumers Eager to Spend On the contrary, Delta believes consumers are eager to spend money, and executives pointed to the change in consumer behavior, with spending shifting spending from retail to travel and experiences. "Consumers have not been traveling over the past two years, so they're prioritizing that spend now," Delta CEO Ed Bastian told investors during its first-quarter earnings call on April 13. "They are looking for experiences." Bastian pointed to credit card data from both Delta's co-branded credit card with American Express and from increased spending on hotels and rental cars. During the depths of the pandemic, consumers redeployed cash they ordinarily would have spent on travel to home-improvement and other retail purchases. "You're seeing a pretty significant shift coming out of goods and retail into experiences and services," he said. "And that's not just the fact that people haven't traveled, they've also saved money as they've accumulated some meaningful cash and discretionary income for what they have been doing over the last couple of years." Consumers in the U.S. are sitting on $2.5 trillion more in savings than they had before the pandemic, due largely to decreased spending on travel, restaurants, and other services curtailed by quarantines and lockdowns, data from the Federal Reserve Bank show. Although the household savings rate has declined from its pandemic-era high of more than 30 percent to pre-pandemic levels of roughly 7 percent, many higher-income households in the U.S. have significantly more to spend than they did before March 2020. This is despite the higher costs of goods and services from the highest rate of inflation in 40 years. And when they spend money on travel, consumers are more likely to spend it on premium seats, Bastian said. Delta has bet heavily on the front of the aircraft, investing in new cabins on much of its fleet of aircraft, including planning a new transcontinental premium product on its Airbus A321neos. The airline is positioning itself as an upscale brand, and is well placed to capitalize on the trend, he said. Delta reported its domestic premium revenue hit 100 percent of 2019 levels in March. Premium travel to Latin America and Europe also has recovered, with no measurable decline in demand due to the Ukraine war, and Delta sees significant growth possibilities in this segment as corporate travelers return. In March, domestic corporate travel was 70 percent of three years earlier, and transatlantic business travel was roughly half. The federal pre-departure testing requirement for passengers returning to the U.S. is depressing demand for transatlantic travel, but Bastian said Delta is "encouraged" by signs that Washington may lift the requirement soon. He did not outline a timeline for when the requirement may be dropped. Business travel also is expected to increase as more companies reopen their offices. In 2020 and through last year, small- and medium-sized businesses led the business travel recovery while large companies largely grounded their staff. This is changing, Bastian said, as a survey of Delta's corporate clients revealed that 90 percent plan to travel more in the second quarter. But travel increasingly is