Hawaiian Airlines’ net up 31% after ‘eventful’ quarter

Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)

Oct. 24--Two hurricanes in Hawaii, a typhoon in Japan, lingering impacts from the Kilauea eruption and rising fuel costs didn't prevent Hawaiian Holdings Inc. from carrying the most passengers of any third quarter ever or achieving a solid financial performance.

On Tuesday the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines reported a third-quarter profit of $93.5 million, up almost 31 percent from the year-ago $71.6 million.

Hawaiian Holdings Inc. had net income of $1.84 a share, an increase of 50 cents a share from the third quarter of 2017. Earnings, adjusted for nonrecurring items, were $1.91 a share, a 5-cent gain over the same period in 2017. The carrier surpassed Zacks Investment Research's earnings- per-share consensus estimate of $1.73.

THIRD-QUARTER NET

$93.5 million

YEAR-EARLIER NET

$71.6 million

Hawaiian carried 3 million guests, a third-quarter record, despite a 38 percent hike in fuel costs, Typhoon Jebi's 10-day closure of Osaka Kansai Airport and the dampening of North American traffic from Hurricanes Lane and Oliva.

Peter Ingram, Hawaiian Airlines president and CEO, said, "Our healthy financial and operational performance in this eventful quarter once again demonstrated that the Hawaiian team is second to none."

But Ingram said that the carrier dropped below its own expectations because of severe weather events that affected "financial performance and, specifically, our revenue to varying degrees."

The company's third-quarter revenue fell short of the Zacks estimate. But it grew 6 percent year-over-year to $759.1 million.

Brent A. Overbeek, Hawaiian Airlines senior vice president of revenue management and network planning, said the revenue gain occurred because of "top-line growth in each of our geographies, strong performance in our value-added products, and another record quarter for our cargo business."

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