Delta Air Lines, Inc. · DAL · FY2024 Q3 · Calendar Q4 2024

Delta’s premium strategy supports margins as it maintains guidance

Delta’s Q3 commentary supports a constructive but conditional view: premium demand, corporate travel, international demand, and cargo are supporting performance, while fuel, capacity, and near-term demand uncertainty remain important checks.

Reported Before market openNYSEIndustrials $49.10B market cap
100quality score

Earnings scorecard

Reported versus consensus
Reported EPS $1.50 Consensus $1.52
EPS surprise -1.3% Reported versus consensus
Reported revenue $15.68B Consensus $14.65B
Revenue surprise +7.0% Reported versus consensus

Market reaction

prior-close to event-session close
Stock move -1.4% Event window
SPY move -0.2% Same window
Abnormal move -1.2% Stock minus SPY
Volume 1.8× Versus trailing sessions
Subsequent drift +20.2% Up to 20 sessions
DALSPY benchmark

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Transcript intelligence

What changed

Relative to the prior quarter, Delta’s update added the reported impact of the CrowdStrike outage and Hurricane Milton, highlighted an investment-grade rating upgrade, and placed more emphasis on debt repayment and the upcoming long-term financial framework.

Guidance delta

Maintained: management projected 30% year-over-year earnings growth for Q4 and kept full-year EPS near the midpoint of its $6-$7 range.

Key takeaways

  • Management said premium-cabin revenue outperformed main-cabin revenue by 9 points.
  • Q3 included double-digit operating margins, $3 billion of year-to-date free cash flow, and a $1.3 billion pretax profit.
  • Management highlighted debt repayment, product investment, and an upcoming long-term financial framework.

Management priorities

  • Expand Delta One Lounges and Delta Sync.
  • Invest in the fleet while retiring older aircraft.
  • Continue debt paydown, free-cash-flow generation, and shareholder returns.

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Earnings History

Estimate Beat Miss Match
DAL EPS earnings history estimate and actual scatter chart 10 reported fiscal quarters and 4 future estimate-only quarters. Q4 '23 estimate $1.17 Q4 '23 actual $1.28, beat Q1 '24 estimate $0.37 Q1 '24 actual $0.45, beat Q2 '24 estimate $2.36 Q2 '24 actual $2.36, match Q3 '24 estimate $1.52 Q3 '24 actual $1.50, miss Q2 '25 estimate $2.06 Q2 '25 actual $2.10, beat Q3 '25 estimate $1.57 Q3 '25 actual $1.71, beat Q4 '25 estimate $1.53 Q4 '25 actual $1.55, beat Q1 '26 estimate $0.58 Q1 '26 actual $0.64, beat Q2 '26 estimate $1.49 Q2 '26 actual $1.56, beat Q3 '26 estimate $1.77 Q3 '26 actual $1.72, miss Q4 '26 estimate $1.41 Q1 '27 estimate $0.52 Q2 '27 estimate $2.48 Q3 '27 estimate $2.17
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Analyst Consensus ?

ConsensusBuy44 ratings
Bullish3784.1%
Neutral715.9%
Bearish00.0%

Analyst 52W Price Targets

$74.63Previous close
$38Low
$80.26Average
$125High

Latest persisted target per named analyst; persisted previous close from FN2's market snapshot as of Oct 20, 2026. Not an FN2 forecast.

Firm-level rating actions

FMP grade actions identify the grading firm, not a named analyst.

FirmRatingPrior ratingActionDate
UBS Buy BuyMaintainOct 12, 2026
Susquehanna Positive PositiveMaintainOct 12, 2026
BMO Capital Outperform OutperformMaintainOct 12, 2026
Bernstein Outperform OutperformMaintainOct 7, 2026
Wells Fargo Overweight OverweightMaintainOct 6, 2026
Show 39 more rating actions

Named analyst price targets

Upside is calculated against the persisted previous close $74.63. FMP does not supply a rating on these named-analyst rows.

FirmAnalyst52W targetPrice when postedUpsideDate
Seaport GlobalAnalyst unavailable$100$80.78 +34.0%Oct 12, 2026
Argus ResearchAnalyst unavailable$95$80.79 +27.3%Oct 12, 2026
BMO CapitalAnalyst unavailable$105$81.08 +40.7%Oct 12, 2026
UBSAnalyst unavailable$102$81.12 +36.7%Oct 12, 2026
SusquehannaChristopher Stathoulopoulos$95$82.17 +27.3%Oct 12, 2026
See 115 more

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Company context

Snapshot as of publication

Delta Air Lines, Inc. provides scheduled air transportation for passengers and cargo in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Airline and Refinery. Its domestic network centered on core hubs in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Salt Lake City, as well as coastal hub positions in Boston, Los Angeles, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, and Seattle; and international network centered on hubs and market presence in Amsterdam, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Santiago (Chile), Sao Paulo, Seoul-Incheon, and Tokyo. It also provides aircraft maintenance and engineering support, repair, and overhaul services; and vacation packages. The company operates through a fleet of approximately 1,314 aircraft. Delta Air Lines, Inc. was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Historical context

All DAL earnings

Industrials peers this season

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JBHT J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. FY2026 Q3 · Calendar Q4 2026 +0.6% -2.0% J.B. Hunt: Strong demand, but margin repair remains central
FAST Fastenal Company FY2026 Q3 · Calendar Q4 2026 +3.3% +1.1% Fastenal Q3: Share Gains and Digital Adoption Lift Growth

Latest beats and misses

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Sources

  1. Earnings call transcript and parsed analysis · 2026-05-11T10:29:34.698584+00:00
  2. FN2 earnings calendar · 2024-10-17T05:10:49.140638+00:00
  3. Polygon adjusted daily market bars · 2026-10-20T10:00:44.222259+00:00
  4. Financial Modeling Prep analyst price-target consensus and quote snapshot · 2026-10-20T10:00:44.219091+00:00

Methodology

Reported and consensus figures come from FN2's earnings event records. Market reaction and volume are calculated from daily adjusted bars around the event; abnormal move subtracts the SPY move over the same window.

Analyst target low, average, and high values are derived at request time from each named analyst's latest persisted FMP target. The current-price marker comes from FN2's persisted market snapshot. They are sell-side estimates, not an FN2 valuation or recommendation.

Transcript intelligence is a structured synthesis of the current and prior earnings-call analyses. Missing values stay missing and are never estimated.

By FN2 Research · Updated · As of 2026-10-20. For educational purposes only; not investment advice.