CO, DL Regionals Profitable, AA Not

Just as we’ve seen in previous quarters, the regional programs at Delta and Continental posted profits for the quarter, while expenses for the regional affiliates at American overwhelmed revenues. The results came as all three carriers reported losses for the third quarter.
American Airline’s regional affiliates posted losses as expenses rose from $701 million in the year-ago quarter to $798 million in the third quarter 2008. The operations earned $668 million, up 3.1 percent. For the quarter, revenue passenger miles dropped 12.2 percent to 2.293 billion, while available seat miles, declined four percent to 3.305 billion. Load factor dropped 6.5 points to 69.4 percent.
Continental’s regional operations posted a profit having brought in $614 million in passenger revenues, up 7.2 percent. Regional RASM was up 0.9 percent while ASMs jumped 6.2 percent. Even so, regional expenses followed the mainline with whopping increases. Capacity purchase costs were up 24 percent to $553 million for the quarter and 24.9 percent to $1.648 billion for the nine months.
Passenger revenue for the Delta regional airline operations dropped during the third quarter when revenues reached $1.057 billion, down 3.8 percent. The posting came on an 11.9 percent drop in regional capacity although unit revenue was up 9.1 percent and yield was up 8.1 percent. Contract carrier expenses rose 11 percent to $905 million, making the operation profitable.