Good morning. My name is Sia, and I will be the conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Alaska Air Group 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and will be accessible for future playback at alaskaair.com. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session for analysts. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Alaska Air Group's Managing Director of Investor Relations, Emily Halvorson. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Thea, and good morning. Thank you for joining us for our Q2 2021 earnings call. This morning, we issued our earnings release, which is available at investor. Alaskaair.com. On today's call, you'll hear updates from Ben, Andrew and Shane.
Several others of our management team are also on the line to answer your questions during the Q and A portion of the call. Our financial results published this morning reflect a clear step forward in the recovery of our business. In the Q2, Air Group reported an adjusted pre tax loss of 3%. For the first time since February 2020, Monthly adjusted pre tax margins turned positive in June at approximately 14%. These results exclude any CARES Act payroll Support Program Benefit.
The pace of recovery during the quarter drove approximately $840,000,000 in cash flow from operations, inclusive of the $489,000,000 of CareZach payroll support program grants received. Our comments today will include forward looking statements about future performance, which may differ materially from our actual results. Information on risk factors that could affect our business can be found in our SEC filings. We will also refer to certain non GAAP financial measures such as adjusted earnings and unit costs excluding fuel. And as usual, we have provided a reconciliation between the most directly comparable GAAP and non GAAP measures in today's earnings release.
Over to you, Ben.
Thanks, Emily, and good morning, everyone. The results we published this quarter show that we are successfully rebuilding our company and returning to profitability. As Emily shared, our 2nd quarter pre tax loss was 3%, lining us close to breakeven as we had initially forecast during our Q1 call. Margins improved significantly during the quarter as we exited March with a 41% loss and closed June with a pretax income of 14%. Our Q2 adjusted pretax margin is the best in the industry among carriers who have reported so far.
This quarter, we hit several milestones that validate our strategy is working. The first milestone was our return to profitability, Exiting the quarter with solid double digit margins. The second is that our business returned to positive cash flow generation of 351,000,000 excluding any PSP grant funding. 3rd, we used our strong liquidity position to begin to delever Bringing debt to cap down 6 points from the prior quarter to 56%. And lastly, with the strong return of passenger demand, Our productivity levels rebounded to near 2019 levels.
Underlying these achievements is a dramatic return in leisure demand that began to gain momentum in March. To a lesser extent, business travel demand has been increasing more recently as well. Air Group's passenger emplanements progressed from down 34% in April to down 18% in July. We are consistently flying about 110,000 passengers per day and forward bookings are approximately 85% of 2019 normalized levels. This progress and our second quarter results give us confidence that the worst of the downturn is behind us, But the impact of the Delta variant may pose some risk in the recovery trajectory.
To date, we are seeing no signs of demand slowing, We will continue to watch booking trends carefully so that we can appropriately match capacity with demand. With that in mind, our plan is to return to 100% of 2019 flying levels by no later than the summer of 2022. However, given that the recent surge in demand has been consistently strong and has not shown signs of slowing, We may accelerate our return to pre COVID levels accordingly. To create flexibility for that faster ramp up in capacity, We are planning to reactivate approximately 10 Airbus aircraft and begin flying them this fall and winter. This temporary return of several Airbus airplanes allows us to create capacity quickly and protects against unforeseen events that could be outside of our control, such as supply chain disruptions.
Last quarter, we spoke about deleveraging our cost structure, Fleet plans and commercial tailwinds to move back to a path of sustained profitability quickly. It's clear from this quarter's financial results that our approach to managing the business is working. For Q2, we expect our pre tax margin, load factor and unit revenues to be near the top of the industry as a result of our disciplined approach to capacity. With growing passenger counts, our productivity has increased 1.5 times between March June and is expected to be within a few points of 2019 levels in July and beyond. This sets us up well to further close the gap on 2019 CASM ex levels.
As we look forward to the next 6 months, We expect to deliver double digit margins throughout the Q3 and high single digit margins in the 4th quarter. It's also worth noting that the gap between our 2021 2019 margins is closing each quarter. I'm proud of how quickly we've returned to profitability and how, as Shane will detail, we have begun reinforcing the fortress balance sheet It has been a hallmark of our business for many years. Our financial strength sets us up well for sustainable growth in the future. Impressively, our operation performed near the top of the industry in on time arrivals and completion rates even with the rapid return in traffic during the quarter.
At our Seattle hub, where our flying is essentially back to 2019 levels already, we have found that entry level labor pools are limited, making hiring a challenge, particularly for ramp workers. This staffing pressure, along with record breaking heat waves during the quarter, have put stress on our operations. Yes, through these challenges, we've delivered for our guests with caring service, creative solutions and teamwork. I want to recognize the incredible efforts of our employees across the operation, including airports, ground handling, contact centers, in flight, flight operations and maintenance team, many of whom have covered extra shifts to keep our operation and guests moving as peak summer travel got underway. Even our back office management employees at all levels have jumped in to help the operation in the past couple of months.
One of the things I truly love about this company is our And how our employees support each other and take care of our guests no matter what it takes. While it is inevitable that we will encounter new challenges and uncertainty as the recovery advances, our momentum continues to build. Our measured deployment of capacity allows us to maximize financial results while allowing our operation to scale up successfully. It's exciting to see Air Group's progress as we rebuild our network and operation, harvest savings from cost and productivity initiatives and reinforce our strong balance sheet. I am confident that this is exactly the strong foundation we need to further grow our partnerships with 1 World and American, Leverage our 737 preorder and launch our upcoming commercial initiatives.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Andrew.
Thanks, Ben, and it's great to be with you all again. Our comments this morning are going to center around 3 areas. First, we're going to be talking about our 2nd quarter revenue performance, but I'll focus on sequential monthly improvements in revenue versus quarter over quarter So that the trajectory of our revenue recovery is clear. 2nd, I'll provide capacity and revenue guidance for the 3rd quarter. And then lastly, I'll be touching on revenue initiatives that are getting ready to take effect or will be rolled out in the future to further enhance our revenue performance.
Starting with revenue this quarter. Our 2nd quarter revenues were $1,500,000,000 down 33% from 2019, but nearly double The revenue we generated in the Q1. As Ben shared, this reflects material increases in passenger volumes as well as sequential improvement in yields. This quarter, we flew 21% below 2019 capacity levels With load factors climbing from 70% in April, 75% in May, and 86% in June, This acceleration put us just above our load factor guidance range for the quarter and we expect load factors in the mid-80s for the rest of the summer. I'll speak more to our guidance in a few minutes.
Our RASM was down 15.5% for the quarter, but the improvement From the beginning of the quarter versus the end was dramatic. Our RASM was down 25% in April, 18% in May and only 5.5% in June. Much of this improvement was driven by passenger volumes, but yield also played an important role, which improved 8.5 points during the quarter from down 14% in April to down 5.5% in June. Mileage plan revenues, including commission revenues from our co brand credit card program and award redemption revenue showed particular strength during the quarter. Collectively, Mileage Plan revenues represent nearly 20% of total revenues and were down just 9% versus the Q2 of 2019 with June down just 9 tenths of a point.
Bank commission revenues were particularly strong for the quarter, up 7% versus 2019. Additionally, we saw credit card acquisitions for the quarter of 2019. We're encouraged by our loyalty program performance and it's clear that our guests are excited to engage with our program as they return to travel. So turning to our network. Our strong sequential revenue performance was enabled by our network team's rebuild strategy.
Air Group has returned to approximately 80% of its pre COVID network size, but we prioritize Seattle growth Given the strength of demand here, our Seattle hub capacity in Q2 was approximately 2% higher than in the Q2 of 2019. And the team also restructured the Seattle hub to gain access to greater flow traffic, which has helped fuel this growth. As of July, our Pacific Northwest flying is only down 4% from 2019.
We expect
to continue to grow Pacific Northwest capacity from here. And Hawaii capacity has also been returned more quickly than system average and was only down 7% in the Q2 from 2019. We've reallocated some Hawaii flying across different markets, which includes adjustments to frequencies in both California and the Pacific Northwest, which has proven to be a positive move. Our California capacity was down 40% in the second quarter, reflecting the reality The demand in the states has been amongst the weakest in the nation. As we shared last quarter, we will add back capacity to California as demand returns, which we believe has now started.
During the first half of the year, there was an 8 point load factor gap that existed between our California and non California flying. And with the state reopening mid June, I can report that the gap has fully closed in the past several weeks. With California load factors improving, We're experiencing relative stronger pricing and yields on flights that touch California are now better than the rest of the system on a year over 2 basis. As with our entire network, our priority is to continue to match supply with demand and we fully expect to have returned 100% of pre COVID capacity to California sometime in the first half of twenty twenty two. Even though system capacity remains below 2019 levels, We have been adding new markets to our network to maximize revenues as the recovery takes hold.
We've seen a shift in demand during the pandemic to getaway destinations And cities with lower costs of living and our recent focus on growth in places like Boise, Austin and Florida are due to this reality. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we will have either commenced or announced over 50 net new markets, which reflects the shifting demand landscape in our network. Booking momentum remains strong, stabilizing at about 85% of pre COVID levels. This level of demand is consistent with our capacity plans, which are also approximately 85% of pre COVID levels and support our objective of returning to 80% plus load factors and pre pandemic yields. On the business travel front, we've been encouraged at what appears to be an acceleration of the return of business travel.
In fact, over the past 3 weeks, our indirect Corporate bookings have reflected 40% to 50% recovery of 2019 levels, and we're optimistic this will continue to improve. Similarly, direct corporate bookings that utilize EZ Biz were over 50% recovered in the 2nd quarter. EZ Biz users generally skew geographically towards the Pacific Northwest and State of Alaska customers, but provide a good indicator of recovery trends for Small and Medium Businesses. We mentioned on our prior call that we expected business to recover to about 50% by the end of the year, but with recent Ship with American have opened the door to greater access to corporate travel. Just to give you a sense of our progress against that opportunity, to date, over 90% Of Alaska's top tier corporate accounts have either executed or are expected to execute a joint contract with Alaska and American, which will offer their travelers greater access to options, more competitive fares and seamless elite guest benefits.
Additionally, we will soon be working with several TMCs in a much deeper way. We have spent a fair amount of time over the last few quarters getting ready to fully leverage this distribution channel, which will ensure we are well positioned to get at least our fair share of corporate traffic as business travel recovers. In short, we will be competing on a more level playing field and I'll have more to share on that soon. With this backdrop, I'll turn to our Q3 guidance. Capacity, we plan to fly 17% to 20% below 2019 levels.
Given the strength we see in summer demand, passengers are Expected to be down just 15% to 18% and load factors will improve to 82% to 85%. Revenue is expected to be in line with capacity at down 17% to 20% versus 2019, which means our unit revenues will be close to flat. Looking beyond this year, I've shared that our largest share of corporate travel, new revenue management system along with unique benefits available to us as part of One World critical to our return to sustained and profitable growth. Our team is in the process of sizing these and new commercial opportunities with a directive to deliver at least $300,000,000 of incremental annual revenue to our pre COVID revenue baseline. We plan to provide a deeper look into these initiatives and our expected delivery timeline at a future investor event.
As the next stages of this recovery play out, I look forward to bringing clarity to our investors who are eager to hear about our growth plans. June was a turning point for us and delivering an adjusted pretax margin of over 14% gives me great confidence that our airlines revenue And cost model is configured to return us to industry leading margins as we climb out of this pandemic. And with that, I'll pass it over to Shneur.
Thank Thank you,
Andrew, and good morning, everyone. As our results this quarter indicate, the initial recovery of our business has been rapid and strong. After a deep loss in Q1, we saw margins improve substantially throughout the quarter, posting the double digit margin in June that Ben mentioned. Non fuel costs increased just 9% versus Q1, while capacity increased 29% and our revenues increased 191%. Our results are solidly amongst the best in the industry, which is worth noting, particularly given that California was relatively later to reopen than the rest of the country.
Our results underscore the strength of Alaska's business model and our ability to execute as a company. My comments will focus on our financial performance, cash flows and liquidity, cost performance and our plans for the rest of the year. Beginning with cash flows and liquidity, we generated $840,000,000 cash flow from operations this quarter, which is inclusive of $489,000,000 in payroll support grants. Excluding PFP grants, We generated $351,000,000 of cash flow from operations at the business. Most of the cash flow improvement was driven by ATL growth, which ended the quarter at $1,500,000,000 $385,000,000 of our ATL represents travel credits, which guests continue to utilize for purchasing tickets.
In the quarter, $185,000,000 of travel was booked using credits versus our normal $40,000,000 a quarter pre pandemic. Our on hand liquidity at June 30 was $4,000,000,000 Up from $3,500,000,000 in March. We shared last quarter that we had plans to begin retiring debt in the second half of the year, But accelerated that plan given the pace of recovery of cash inflows. Debt retirements in the quarter totaled approximately $570,000,000 including the repayment of our $135,000,000 balance under our CARES Act loan. We have now closed that facility and the underlying collateral that Originally secured the facility is once again unencumbered, the largest of which is our mileage plan program.
We expect to end 2021 with around $3,500,000,000 in on hand liquidity, but we'll continue to reduce this balance throughout 2022. We have not yet determined a new normal level of on hand cash The future, but I do expect it will be somewhat higher than what we held pre pandemic. The debt repayments this quarter, as Ben shared, improved our debt to cap by 6 from 62% to 56%. It's worth noting that our adjusted net debt levels dropped to approximately $725,000,000 this quarter, given the excess cash we have on the books today. If we reduced cash by $1,500,000,000 to retire debt, Our debt to cap would be at 47%, which is equivalent to when we entered the pandemic.
I share this only to give a sense of how Strong our balance sheet is as we move into the recovery. We do plan to use cash to pay down more debt this quarter, including our which was an important metric for us during the depths of the pandemic back to focusing on debt to cap and net debt to EBITDAR. Turning to costs. Our cost execution was solid this quarter as productivity levels ramped. Total adjusted non fuel operating expenses were $1,200,000,000 for the quarter, up 9% from Q1, while capacity increased 29% sequentially, As I mentioned a moment ago, we saw productivity levels rise from 42% below 2019 levels in March to 15% below 2019 levels in June, And we expect July to be within a few points of 2019 levels.
Our Q2 unit costs were up 10.4% versus 2019, which was better than our mid June guidance and was helped by $15,000,000 in one time favorable adjustments to wage and benefit related expenses. During the quarter, we also accrued $34,000,000 in expenses related to our performance based pay incentive plan. As many of you know, our approach to incentive is unique in the industry and we continue to see the value it has in driving clarity and alignment throughout our business on the goals we need to achieve to produce strong results as a company over the long term. Also during the quarter, we were able to finalize 3 labor agreements, Including a new wage agreement with our Horizon Pilots and 1 year contract extensions with Alaska's flight attendants and dispatchers. I'd like to thank our employees and their IBT, ASA and TWU representatives for their diligent work to develop and ratify these agreements.
Looking ahead to the end of the year, I expect that our CASM ex will continue to progress toward 2019 levels even though we're not fully back to 2019 capacity by year end with mainline approaching 2019 levels as we exit the year. To recap our expectations for the Q3, we plan on flying 17% to 20 2019 capacity. Revenues should be down in line with capacity, resulting in unit revenues that are approximately flat to 2019. We expect unit cost to be up 10% to 12%, similar to our Q2 performance given the relatively modest capacity increase quarter over quarter. Given these ranges, we expect to achieve double digit margins for
the Q3.
Cash flow from operations is expected to be between $100,000,000 for the quarter. The sequential decline in cash flow from operations is primarily driven by no PSP grant inflows And normal seasonality that we expect to see in ATL, which tends to decline in the Q3. Before we move on to questions, We want to express our appreciation for all the employees who have tirelessly contributed to our success and recovery. As you've heard today, folks in our operation have been working incredibly hard. The improved financial results that we are excited to be sharing with you today would not be a reality without the hard work of 22,000 employees who bring our airlines to life each day.
And with that, let's go to your questions.
At this time, I would like to invite analysts who would like to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A roster. And our first question will come from Catherine O'Brien with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for the time. Hey, Kate. Hey, guys. So Your June Q cash flow came in quite a bit better than initial expectations in part driven by better forward bookings.
But your capacity cut for the Q3 is only, I think, 2.5 points an hour in the Q2. Is that the max capacity you could produce given the fleet changes you've made over the last year or is the demand uptick we're going to see that more in higher loads and yields?
Hi, Katie. Yes, our capacity is sort of where it's going to be for the Q3. And so the loads and the yields is what's going to drive the
So when you say the capacity is where it's going to be, does that mean that's kind of the max in terms of headcount and fleet availability?
Yes, that's correct. Our capacity guide, because what we've tried to do when we set this up, Costs are always certain, revenues is not so much. So we've set this up so that we've got a very solid handle on our costs with a good level of capacity because there is Room for growth on the yield front and the load factors, and so that's where we're going to be for the Q3 in that range that I shared.
Yes, Katie, I might just add, I think we talked about this Before we do want to get back to 80% plus load factors on a sustained basis, we're not looking to see a lot of variation as we move from peak to shoulder. And so this pent up demand that we're seeing in the summer, it was we didn't know how much of that Would follow into the fall. So I think we've been pretty methodical about capacity and that's how we've set up headcount for the Q3. But we are going to reactivate these 10 Airbus And if they come online and it looks like there's opportunity to use them, the demand is there, we will deploy them. But it will probably be more Q4 for that.
Okay, very clear. And then just for my follow-up, like most of the industry has reported so far, you're expecting capacity cuts to narrow a little bit in the Q3 versus 2Q, but CASMex inflation to pick up a little bit sequentially. Is that all just ramp up costs tied to bringing on more capacity? Or what's driving that and how should we think about maybe some of those ramp up costs flowing or not flowing into the Q4? Thanks so much for the time, guys.
Yes. No, thanks, Katie. I'll speak to that a little bit. I think there's a little bit of Q3 cost that is ramp up getting ready for Q4 next year. But a couple of notes, we outperformed our Q2 guide handily.
We did have this Benefit of $15,000,000 in one time items. There are also other areas like medical came in way under our original forecast. It's a little bit hard to forecast right now when People are going to go in to the doctors, so volumes were down. So some of that isn't in our Q3 guide. We don't expect one time We're sort of expecting medical to normalize, but the biggest driver for us sequentially is selling expenses are now coming back in a big way.
ASMs are only up a few points quarter over quarter, but passengers and revenue are up 25%, 30% quarter over quarter. So we're Starting to see commissions and credit card expenses rise. Also in the Q3, we'll have our full catering complement on board. So more people getting more food and beverage Similar to where we were pre COVID. So we've got those are all variable costs.
They're not structural. I'm not worried about them at all, but they're coming back with demand, and they're all coming back in the
The next question will come from Helane Becker with Cowen. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, operator. Hi, everybody, and thank you very much for the time. So my first question is related To something you said, Shane, I think you said that you were seeing bookings at about that about $185,000,000 worth of bookings are using credits versus $40,000,000 pre pandemic. So as you think about going into the 3rd and 4th quarter end and that would and working out those travel credits, Are you going to get back to that $40,000,000 level or is there a new level that we should think about?
Hey, Elaine, this is Chris. We won't get to that $40,000,000 level this year because obviously the remaining travel credits Are much more elevated over where they were pre pandemic. We've got about 25% of our total ATL, as Shane mentioned, in travel credits Most of those do expire at the end of this year. So we expect those to be used at a pretty heavy pace the remainder of this year. And then as we get 2022.
We would expect those to start to normalize then.
Okay. And then it normalizes back to around 40,000,000
Well, I mean, that's hard to tell.
I mean, that's just what
it was. Yes, we do have the element of no change fees anymore. And so It may be higher than it has historically been, but it will definitely level off from where it is now.
Okay. And then just for my follow-up question. I think, Ben, you mentioned that you're having a hard time hiring ramp workers and I guess other nonunion or maybe they are part of the union, but So how should we think about like attracting people to the profession, to the airline industry in general, If they are unionized and you can't raise starting pay or can you raise starting pay so that you can attract people? And does that lead to wage inflation for you?
Yes. Good morning, Helane. It's a great question. I think this is a national issue as you're hearing a lot of companies talk about this labor shortage. I would say the only place we're seeing it now, we're not seeing it with pilots or flight attendants or a lot of labor groups.
Where we're seeing it is really at the entry level position, particularly in Seattle. There are spots across the country, but particularly in Seattle. So what we're doing is really looking at the market. I think we want to Be prudent about this. We're looking at the market.
We're looking at what it might be in September October when the stimulus and the unemployment runs out. This thing needs to find its water level, so we're going to approach slowly. What we've done now and our operations team has done just a phenomenal job with some incentives to attract workers. And so we're doing fine now, but it's just something that's on our windshield. And I don't think we know where that number is going to be for just a few more months.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Duane.
The next question will come from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks and congrats on this outlook. Only because you David, and I apologize for asking this because you gave good disclosure. But just on June 14 Can you put that in context, like what does a June typically look like relative to kind of the rest of the second quarter?
Yes. So Dwayne, I'll give you some context. I mean, if you look back at 2019, the June 14% this time It's about 10 points lower than say it was in 2019. So June, July, August tend to be our highest margin months and they're typically in the 20s.
Got it. I guess I was Asking relative to the other months of the quarter because it just it sounds like you're saying you saw much better kind of trajectory, much better kind of sequential build in margin than you normally do.
Yes, Duane, it's Andrew. Excuse me. I think the best way to describe that is the capacity was fairly Even in April, May June, but what you saw was load factors going from 70% to 86% And yield declines from down 25% to 5.5%. So the revenue and volumes really made the difference there over the quarter.
That's great. And then just with respect to 3Q and this might just relate to what you just said, Maybe you can speak a little bit to kind of the visibility coming in and Kind of the advanced book yields because it felt like the industry needed to overcome kind of the advanced book yields coming into 2Q, But they're in a much better place coming into 3Q. And maybe you could just comment on like your stage changes because this is listen, this is not a massively long haul network that's contorting to be short haul like flat RASM in 3Q feels like a great outcome.
Yes. Thanks, Duane. At the top of my head, I don't know our stage, but that's not really the story. I think to your point, What we're seeing is and honestly as I look out, that's why we shared flat RASM. From what we're seeing today, Our yield position looks good and much better than it was in the Q2.
And the bookings are coming in Well, I think on the business fare side, the environment is still weak. Just to be frank, the leisure is much better, but I Suspect as business travel demand returns, I think we might see a strengthening there. But as I look forward right now, I feel pretty good about how we're positioned from both a load factor and a yield perspective and incremental improvement from the Q2.
And Wayne, while I add it, think we're just being disciplined on how we deploy capacity. I think that's the big story for us. We've been very thoughtful from a year ago on how we're going to deploy capacity, bring people back, Scale up the operation, and I think we're going to do that through the Q3 and the Q4 and into next year as we ramp up to 100%. We're going to watch what's going on, Watch demand and react appropriately.
Makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
Thanks, Ryan.
The next question will come from Savi Syth with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Just to follow-up on Katie's question, as you bring those kind of 10 Airbus back this year and Given your fleet order, just where do you think, not looking for guidance, but what's the kind of the high level and the low level of where capacity can go in 2022.
Hi, Savi, it's Andrew. Yes, so if you look out, These Airbus aircraft start to return by the end of the year. But if we flew them all at normal utilization, So summer of 2022, we could increase summer of 2022's capacity up to 8% versus where we are in 2019. So As it stands today, we've talked about getting to flat, but if we really needed to or wanted to, we could get up 8%.
That's helpful. Thank you. And then, Ed, I know you teased this a little bit on the 300 And, incremental, I was just kind of wondering if that's related to items that you have put in place today or if there is Things that you have to actually turn on to start achieving that at some point. I realize it's not $300,000,000 next year, but just From an execution standpoint, what's involved related
to that?
Yes, Savi, I'll start with that and then hand over to Andrew. When we put our 2025 strategic plan in place prior to pandemic, we built it up with a lot of Strong commercial initiatives that had that $300,000,000 in there. And then the pandemic hit, we kind of put everything on ice to address cash burn And get back on the path of profitability. So at our recent off-site, all these initiatives are being refreshed. And I can tell you, Andrew is stoked On getting going.
So maybe, Andrew, maybe just I just wanted to give you some background that these things are just not new. These are things that have been in the hopper For at least 18 months to 24 months. But Andrew, maybe just a little color on that.
Thanks, Ben. Yes, Savi, I mean, there's sort of 7 categories. And Yes, some of them were there pre pandemic that was ready, but there's also been big changes in our business like corporate contracts, TMCs, American, One World, merchandising and we've got some network restructuring and changes. So I think as we roll this out, But I feel very confident that it's almost like we're on the runway barreling down at full speed and then the pandemic hit. And We were so close to starting to roll some of these out.
And now that demand is returning and our business is reestablishing, we're going to get to rolling these out.
Savi, I'm going to jump in too, so you get all 3 of us on this. I just want to reiterate the plan is sort of a 4 or 5 year plan. So We'll talk more about specific timing at an investor event, which will hold at some point in the next quarter or 2. But the whole The cost restructure plan and the commercial plan is really predicated on 2025 ultimately getting there. So I just don't want people to get too excited about next quarter But we are excited about the initiatives that we're going to be undertaking.
Makes sense. It's all very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks, Jack.
The next question is from Hunter Keay with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, hi. Hey, Andrew. Andrew, have you ever contemplated, you and your team have contemplated like a fully transparent or predictable revenue management strategy, basically non dynamic pricing. Hi, Hunter. I think no.
It might be my short answer
to that, but if you want to expand on your
question, happy to give you more color.
That's fine. If the answer is no, then it's no. We'll need to talk about it some other time. But,
I don't know. I just think I would say like I think we do try to be simpler than a lot of other folks. I mean, it is a you know, I mean, you know this well, it's a complicated sort of discipline, but We were, I think, the 1st domestic airline to go to one way fares. We have had a pretty small number of buckets relative to others. We've had sort of caps at the high end Historically, we have tried to be fair and simple with a lot of this stuff.
But sort of a one price fits all or something like that, I think it's probably revenue negative, so we haven't really looked at that
yet. Okay.
But after it's always good to hear it. I mean, we all stimulate our thinking, so maybe following this, We can hear more.
Yes, let's talk about it some other time. I have some ideas. But anyway, one other question for you, Shane. You talked about pulling the airbuses out. You mentioned supply chain disruptions.
Are you suggesting there's some risk to the MAX delivery schedule?
Hunter, no, I mentioned that. We just met
with Zari.
I will tell you, I am 100% confident in Boeing's ability to deliver. Our view is that there are things right now in the economy with supply chains that some of us can't even see out of our control, out of Alaska's control, out of Boeing's control. And these Airbus, what it does, it just gives us dry powder to either backfill any issues that we may experience because of it, Or like Andrew said, we can grow up to 8% for the next summer of 2022. So again, with a prudent approach to capacity discipline. So it's just more arrows in our quiver for us to manage going forward.
Okay. Yes. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it, everybody.
Thanks, Hannah. Thanks, Hannah.
The next question is from Joseph DeNardi with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Shane, just following up on an earlier question. If capacity in summer 2022 is up 8%. What does CASMex look like in that environment?
Wilson, I just want to be careful. If it were up by 8% is the question. I don't know that it will be. But I think our view is by the middle of next year with sort of the full ramp of our cost restructuring initiatives,
We're going
to be in a really good place. We do expect to be at or below pre COVID CASM ex ultimately. We've said that from the very beginning. I don't know if we would hit it by next summer, but we should be there or getting very close to there. I don't think I'll be more specific than that.
It's I think we're going to have a really good cost structure. One thing we know we're going to not do is lose Sort of relative advantage to others in the industry. So we're super focused on this cost discipline and execution. The productivity stuff that we're seeing right now It makes us feel very good about how we've executed to date.
Okay. That's helpful. And then Andrew, can you just talk about Customer behavior you're seeing like, are folks flying more? Are they spending more than they did in 2019? Or is it just kind of compressing normal behavior into a tighter window?
I'm just curious kind of what changes in behavior maybe beyond that You're seeing and the degree to which that speaks to kind of the sustainability of this leisure demand strength. Thank you.
Yes. Thanks, Joe. I was just talking to my team yesterday about this. Looking out into the 4th quarter. I think what we're actually seeing at least from our network's perspective is actually people are booking earlier and further out than they were in 2019.
So As we sit here today, we're seeing good intake volumes for the Q4. And if you just take a look at our credit card spend and our loyalty portfolio. In fact, we have had we had the highest spend in this company's history, this quarter on our credit card portfolio. So we're just seeing sustained strength and honestly as I look further It's still maintaining. So that's what I see today.
Thank you.
The next question is from Jamie Baker with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning everybody. So Ben, Not so long ago, you and I were talking about when you might reintroduce pretax Longer term pretax margin targets and whether it would simply be the pre COVID 13% to 15% or possibly Something even better. In your prepared remarks today, I kind of thought that's where you were going, but you stopped short. What else do you need to see? Is it the macro environment?
Is it Alaska specific? Maybe it's related to future labor economics, I don't know, before you're comfortable replanting your margin flag, so to speak.
Jay, it's a great question. I think what we need to see is just a little more stability in the economy. Like for example, you got this delta variant there that might create some choppiness in the recovery. So I think we just want to be cautious. I mean, just from my perspective, I feel Pretty confident that the worst is behind us.
I think we've started with a strong pretax profit in June. I think we should easily sustain it going forward. I think we want a little more certainty closer to the windshield, see what's going on out there with labor markets, with the return Thank you. The economy, there's inflation, there's all these things. We just want to see this stuff settle down a little bit.
And I think come Investor Day, I think we'll give you more information on that. We'll give you more visibility. But it's like you said, we're slowly getting there and I think today is as far as we want to go.
And then and thank you for that. And as a follow-up, I think it was Joe's ex fuel CASM question. Can you just Review for us what the headwinds and tailwinds are, because on my list, I have more entries in the tailwind category, But of course, not every entry is equally weighted. I'm just having a hard time coming up with Anything that would prevent you from having modest to materially better ex fuel CASM by next summer. So just looking for a little more color headwinds and tailwinds.
Thanks.
Thanks, Jamie. I do think it's capacity at the end of the day. The fixed costs are kind of stable. We like where they're at. A lot of the cuts that we did during the pandemic has held and we'll be very disciplined on that.
The variable costs are coming back as we would expect ratably, and so to us, its capacity is the biggest thing, just getting the ASMs back out there to cover fixed costs over. There's not a major headwind. We will see about there's going to be another sort of round of labor deals at Some point, I don't know when those will happen, but a lot of groups were open across the industry pre pandemic. And It's hard to say when all that stuff will get going again, but my guess is that that's going to be relatively equalized throughout the industry. So, to us it's just Once we get back to our pre pandemic level, we're going to be in a really good position, I think, for NENA costs.
Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Take care.
Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Jamie.
The next question will come from Dan McKenzie with Seaport Global. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hey, thanks guys. Good morning. So I wanted to follow-up on that question as well. Returning to industry leading margins in the next cycle.
That's what caught my ear in the prepared remarks. It sounds like from the last Question that you can get back to your historical margins. Big picture, what are the biggest drivers for Getting there, what are the biggest pieces to the Alaska story for achieving that? And I'm just wondering maybe you could rank the revenue and commercial initiatives versus the I mean there's a lot of new things in play for you guys in this next cycle that didn't exist in the last cycle.
Yes. No, I appreciate it. One thing I'll just I just want to sort of go back to our performance this quarter and I know it's all sort of recovery driven, but I do think posting the industry's best margin very close to breakeven, in a quarter that started with very thin demand and very poor pricing, It just underscores the strength of the business and our ability to execute. And so, we've got a lot of confidence as we go forward. I think, Dan, we've laid out $265,000,000 of cost reduction initiatives that we're well on our way to capturing, and then $300,000,000 of revenue initiatives that we just talked about today.
Some of that was contemplated because we thought maybe the demand environment Past downturns would be a little dampened coming out of COVID as it was in the last 2 big sort of industry downturns. And we wanted to be able to get back to pre COVID margins irrespective of whether demand was down a bit. And it proves not
to be down a bit, that's
just more upside for the company. And so I think that those 2, dollars 565,000,000 or so of improvement to the business over the Few years relative to our pre COVID baseline, that's what's going to drive this ultimately. We've got a great product. We have phenomenal employees, great customer service. We're on a good part of the country, a growing part of the country.
So we're excited for things to stabilize, like Ben said, normalize business, get back out there, And we're ready for the recovery.
Understood. Okay, thanks. Second question here, one of the industry's strongest balance sheets, How are you thinking about using that in the next cycle? Is capital returns on the table sooner rather than later? Or does it make sense potentially You know accelerate, further accelerate some of the fleet replacement retirement up gauge to more efficient aircraft.
How are you thinking about that balance sheet?
Hey, Dan, it's Nat. Thanks for the question. I think from the balance sheet perspective, as Ben and Shane said, we're in pretty good shape From our historical debt to cap measures, we've got a $425,000,000 facility we'll look to repay in the next 90 days or so. And then I think going forward, it becomes a dilemma against repaying other debt, which really in our situation Has pretty cheap rates, further investment in our business. And then as you know, we've got the restriction on shareholder repayment until the end of September next year, Due to some of the government aid.
So we'll balance all three of those things as we move forward.
Okay. Thanks for the time you guys.
Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dan.
The next question will come from Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So maybe kind of a follow-up to that question and maybe there's also links to the revenue initiatives, but Just how far off piece are you willing to go kind of with some of the new revenue initiatives and kind of deploying that balance sheet? Kind of are we looking at Just sticking to the existing mousetrap and trying to maximize opportunity or are you looking at completely different things?
This is Saurabh on the revenue initiatives. Robbie, I think most of it is Stuff that you would expect, and Andrew mentioned it, and he can jump in again, but a new arm system, which Ours was 20 years old. We're excited to have the new one in place. There's a few things. I mean, they're just they're not super exciting to talk about, but distributing Our premium economy cabin, in indirect channels, we only distributed prior indirect channels.
The American One World, WCIA stuff, Those are all sort of on the list of things that are going to contribute. I don't think we want to talk a whole lot about Things that are new that we might be looking at are different today. But if we get closer to an investor event, we'll lay out sort of more clarity on all of these
Got it. I think you guys are doing a really good job of ramping up the excitement here. So looking forward to that. And maybe as a follow-up, kind of how would you describe the competitive environment out there right now? I mean, clearly, there's a lot of demand still concentrated in Created in relatively narrow regions and there's a lot of capacity kind of going into that region.
So how do you characterize the pricing environment as yet?
Ravi, I'll start and then I'll have Andy jump in. I think we always expect competition in our markets, the West Coast, they're very competitive markets. Our mindset again, as you see from where we were last year, how we brought back capacity, it's always been in a disciplined prudent approach. And I think that's We have dry powder. We can scale it up or scale it back.
We have a strong Regional airline horizon that was just fantastic throughout this pandemic to fill in a lot of holes. So Our view is just again a disciplined measured approach over the next 12 18 months. Andrew, anything does that make sense? Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Brad.
Thank you.
The next question will come from Connor Cunningham with MKM Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, everyone. Thanks for the time. The revenue stuff is great. I did have a question that I feel like you guys get basically every quarter. I mean, there's been a big push from a premium perspective from other carriers and you had some recent changes in JFK.
So it seems somewhat topical. With your focus just on higher yielding passengers and corporate in general, has there been any reconsideration on revisiting the product In terms of dedicating more space to premium products or maybe even moving towards a lie flat seat, I would just imagine that corporates are And the reason why I bring it up is, you mentioned this A320 subset of aircraft. It seems like you could test something like that There, I know you have money. I know that will cost money, but it seems like you have the balance sheet to do it. Just curious on your thoughts.
Hi, Connor, it's Andrew. A couple of quick things. Just to be clear on the LA movement, we just redistributed JFK slots across the west of our network. We're still in Newark. So we still fly to New York City from LA.
We've just reallocated those. I think on the product side, of course, like we're always looking at product, But I think we've got 12 16 seats in the front cabin. And if we did lie flat, it would probably still be 12 16 seats. But we have big airplanes to fill.
So I
think where we're at right now is just to get back in the recovery stage. We still feel really good about our front cabin product that we continue to improve. We have the best pitch in the industry on traditional seats, bar none. And then our premium class cabin is also very generous. And I think a big thing for corporates too, is our network utility.
And I did touch on network and I'll say we've done a lot of expansion on breadth over the years. We're going to focus more on depth, frequency.
Okay, great. And then on the American partnership, so I've been thinking a little bit about this a little bit more, but are you expecting your customers to build points and loyalty on your network and then burn them on Americans or maybe it's vice versa? And or does that even matter? I'm just curious like how that dynamic may play out when that starts to really ramp?
I think we have a lot of experience with this actually. We've had big relationships for decades. And I think at the end of the day, the customers will choose where they redeem and accrue miles under individual programs. And again, we We feel really confident and good about our West Coast network and footprint and then American has this big national and global footprint and I think they work very well together. And I think both customers of Advantage and Mileage Plan are going to be a lot of opportunity and choice.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question will come from Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Shane, just a quick one right here. As best as I can tell, it seems like you're in the best position to Get back to investment grade next. Is it a stated objective of the company to get to an IG rating?
Where are you on
It's a stated annoyance that we're not actually in the company, but yes, no Mike, it's Nat and I are going to be talking about this. We need to go back in that direction and it's we've got to figure out how to engage the agencies differently, but It's probably a ways away. They ultimately make all those decisions. But yes, we haven't publicly put it out there, but we certainly want to get there over time.
Yes. Look, the reason why I bring it out is there's a lot of carriers that they will tell you that they want to get back to investment grade like metrics and then they'll go out and lever up an And so It does instill a level of discipline that I think many of us are hats off or tip to a carrier like Delta who wants to get to the IG rating. So I'm just throwing it out there. Then just a second question here to Andrew. Andrew, you You guys have done a fantastic job.
I mean, I don't want to be the dead horse on this revenue. But when I think about the fact that your entire carrier Relies disproportionately on coastal hubs, which have underperformed a lot of the Mid Con hubs. So you're already From a difficult position revenue wise, and yet you're right up there among the best in the industry. Now I know you threw out you made the comment that There's been recalibration to the network. You talked about 50 net new city pairs.
I'm curious how much of the revenue Improvement is just a function of withdrawing from those markets that were underperforming. So I know you gave us a net number, But is there anything that you can give us to give us a sense of what markets that maybe you backed away from that just what they weren't working? And I know you mentioned like depth over breadth and doubling down on Seattle. So maybe I'm answering your question. It's a combination of all that, but any additional color on that front would be great.
Thank
And every CEO, Ben and before have held this strong belief And I'm just going to be very transparent with you on this one is, its loyalty. I will tell you that never in my career when you look at your network And specifically your areas of strength and there's unlimited seats given demand. And when you look at the T100 data and you see your load factors Compared to your competitors' load factors, when there's unlimited seats to choose from and you see your loads on multiples, You know loyalty is powerful. And I'm just going to be transparent, these moving networks around is good, it's needed. But the strength of our loyalty and our guests and their commitment to us and what we hope to continue to invest in them on service, loyalty program and meeting their needs has just proven to be very, very strong for us.
Great, great. Thank you. Thank you for that.
The final question is from Myles Walton with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good afternoon. I was hoping you could just clarify, I You said 4Q, you hoped the mainline CASM ex would be in line with 2019. Can you give us color on regional? And then on the fleet side, that 8% higher 2022 potentially at the exercise, is that similar To the number in the fleet as well, 8% higher than where you were or are you getting there through Still down relative
to the prior fleet levels.
Yes. So, Nat, you can maybe quote the fleet levels. The 8% though is really Enabled primarily by the reactivation of these Airbus for a short additional period of time. I just don't have the fleet count in my head for next year. And then on Q4, I just want to make sure we got it right, Myles.
We're talking about December exit rate, really focused Mainline getting to very close within a few points of pre COVID unit costs. And I think we don't expect to have Pre COVID made my capacity back yet. Regional side is a little bumpy. The sort of Very rapid regrowth and hiring of pilots around the industry puts a little bit more Pressure on both the ability to deploy capacity on the regional side and also needing to get out and start the hiring for The funnel for regional sooner. So we're still working through that.
Those numbers in terms of how many pilots airlines are going to hire have been changing a bunch. But that's going to be a headwind for the regional side of the business for a little bit here.
Myles, on the aircraft side, we've got 2020 2 is a big delivery year for us With 3017-9s coming in, 13 regional jets as well. And so as we Look forward with that and then start to phase out the A320s. We think those are all gone by the end of 2023 And with more 737-9s coming in there too. So you've got some replacement naturally that's going to happen and then some growth as well.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Mike. And at this time, there are no further questions. I'd like to turn the Over to Ben Minicucci for any closing comments.
Well, thank you so much for everyone joining us this morning and we'll talk to all of you soon. Thank you so much.
Thank you for participating in today's conference call. The call will be available for future playback at alaskaair.com. Ladies and gentlemen, you may all disconnect.