Delta Air Lines released fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings statements Friday, revealing a lower cost of jet fuel for the year despite significantly higher use.
Fourth-quarter data did show a small jump in cost over the same quarter in the prior year, however. In the fourth quarter, Delta spent $2.933 billion on fuel and related costs, an almost 3% uptick from the last quarter of 2022 when the airline spent $2.849 billion on fuel.
Full-year data, though, showed a lower yearly cost. Over the course of 2023, Delta spent $11.121 billion on fuel, a 2.90% decrease over the full year 2022 figure of $11.453 billion.
In terms of total gallons used, however, both fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 levels were much higher than prior years.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Delta used 978 million gallons of fuel. That’s a big 12.54% spike from the fourth quarter in the prior year, when Delta used only 869 million gallons of fuel.
That bump of more than 10% in fuel usage was also seen in full-year figures. In 2023, the airline consumed 3.926 billion gallons of fuel. That’s just over 15% higher than 2022, when the company used just 3.412 billion gallons of fuel.
Even though the airline used more fuel, the price per gallon was less than the prior year as well. In the fourth quarter, Delta’s fuel cost was $3/gal, a 6% decline from the $3.20/gal used in the same quarter in 2022. Full-year fuel costs averaged just $2.83/gal for the airline in 2023, a big 16% slide from the 2022 average per gallon cost of $3.36/gal.
The fuel costs per available seat mile, or one seat flown one mile, also showed big declines from the prior year. In the last quarter of 2023, the average cost of fuel CASM was 4.30cts/ASM – just over 10% lower than the final 2022 quarter when the fuel CASM figure was 4.78cts/ASM.
Full-year fuel CASM yielded an even bigger decline year to year. Over the course of 2023, Delta’s fuel CASM was just 4.07cts/ASM – a 17.28% drop from the 4.92cts/ASM seen over 2022.
Delta owns and operates the Monroe Trainer, Pa., facility to help offset fuel costs, but in Friday’s earnings statement, the company said refinery contribution to fuel costs were at a break-even point in 2023, thanks to the planned maintenance in late autumn and early winter that took the plant offline for several weeks.
Looking forward, Delta expects first-quarter 2024 fuel costs to be between $2.50-2.70/gal, equating to a fuel CASM cost of some 4.36cts/ASM.
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–Reporting by Cory Wilchek, cwilchek@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com