CFRA Reiterates Strong Buy Opinion On Shares Of Delta Air Lines, Inc.

We cut our 12-month target price by $12 to $45, 6.9x our 2024 EPS view (cut to $6.49 from $7.24; 2023’s lowered to $6.05 from $6.21), below 2018-2019’s forward P/E average of 8.5x. We think a discount is merited due to rising unit costs. Q3 EPS of $2.03 vs. $1.51 beat consensus by $0.08. Q3 passenger revenues were up 14% Y/Y, driven by its international segment (+35%). DAL revised its 2023 outlook, expecting earnings of $6.13/share at the midpoint (vs. prior midpoint of $6.50/share) and lifted its guidance for revenue growth to ~20% (vs. the prior range of 15%-20%). In addition, DAL revised its free cash flow outlook to $2B (vs. prior $3B) due to rising fuel and maintenance costs. Nonetheless, DAL noted that demand continues to remain steady as we enter the early stages of the peak holiday travel period. In addition, DAL guided that corporate travel is steadily improving, which should translate to healthy margin growth, assuming demand holds.

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