Earnings Labs

Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 14, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Delta Air Lines September Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Melody and I will be your coordinator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow today's presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Jill Sullivan Greer, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Jill Sullivan Greer

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our September quarter call. Speaking on the call from Atlanta today are Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson; our President, Ed Bastian; and our CFO, Paul Jacobson. We have the entire leadership team here with us for the Q&A. Richard will open the call, Ed will then address our financial and revenue performance, and Paul will conclude with a review of our cost performance and cash flow. To get in as many questions as possible during the Q&A, please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that may cause such differences are described in Delta's SEC filings. We'll also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. All results exclude special items unless otherwise noted. You can find the reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on the Investor Relations page at ir.delta.com. And with that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Richard Anderson.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Thanks, Jill. This morning, Delta reported a $2.2 billion pretax profit for the September quarter, a 33% improvement year-on-year, as our business continues to perform exceptionally well. We delivered earnings per share of $1.74 versus consensus estimates of $1.71. As demand is good, we essentially held revenues flat against a steep decline in fuel which allows Delta to bring about two-thirds of our fuel savings to the bottom-line for our owners. Therefore despite economic uncertainty in some international markets such as Brazil and Japan, and the impact of a strong dollar, we were able to expand operating margins by 5 points to 21%, and improve earnings per share by 45%. We generated $2.4 billion in operating cash flow and $1.4 billion in free cash flow in the quarter, and we have delivered a return on invested capital of 26.3% for the last 12 months. We reduced our net debt by $1 billion year-on-year, held our non-fuel CASM growth to 0.9% in the quarter, and we have returned over $2 billion of cash to our owners year-to-date. These types of results investors expect from a high quality industrial company like Delta, our metrics rank among the top 10% of S&P Industrials. Our free cash flow performance puts Delta in the company of companies like 3M and Lockheed Martin. Our work over the past decade has produced a strong and durable foundation. We have consistently hit our EPS and cash flow commitments over the years. We will leverage that foundation in order to consistently produce strong and dependable earnings and cash flows throughout the business cycle. At the base of that foundation are the people of Delta, and our unique employee culture. Our outstanding results this quarter were made possible by the dedication of our employees who work hard every day to…

Ed Bastian

Analyst

Thanks, Richard. Good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us. We delivered the best quarter ever posted in the industry, the September quarter, with pretax income increasing 33% to $2.2 billion. Thanks to the Delta employees for their contributions to an outstanding quarter, a performance that drove our profit sharing accrual of more than $560 million. This brings our profit sharing total to $1.1 billion year-to-date. We have already surpassed the total profit sharing paid last year, so the upcoming Valentine's Day will be especially sweet for our Delta team. We expanded our operating margin more than 5 points to 21% which is at the high end of our initial guidance range. Our revenues were roughly flat despite facing a $235 million headwind from foreign exchange. Our commercial initiatives are producing great revenue momentum. Corporate demand remains solid with volume growth of 5%. In the domestic entity, corporate growth was notably strong in the Transcons and West Coast markets as we successfully leverage our investments in New York, LA, and Seattle. We saw meaningful improvements in our healthcare, financial services, and media sectors, offsetting declines in energy and manufacturing. We have rolled out branded fares in 462 markets and the initiative continues to go well delivering an additional $75 million in high margin revenue for the quarter. We are especially pleased with sales in Comfort+ which increased 42% and First Class upsell where we increased our paid first class load factor to 56% up 8 points year-over-year on a base of 5% more First Class seats. Our agreement with American Express produced over $100 million in incremental value this quarter. As you may recall we renewed our contract with American Express at the end of last year. We have a great partner in American Express and continue to expect the revenue…

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I will start by highlighting another strong cost performance at Delta this quarter. Lower fuel prices and strong cost controls contributed to a roughly $650 million decline in total operating expenses, despite 3% higher capacity. Non-fuel CASM increased by 1% as we continue to benefit from our re-fleeting and cost reduction initiatives. The benefit accrual related to the recently announced pay increases for Delta employees created about a point of pressure that was not included in our initial outlook, but our performance remained consistent with our stated goal. We have built a good foundation for cost productivity and our up-gauging initiatives are creating operating leverage that will benefit us for years to come. In fact, in 2008, our domestic gauge has increased from about 104 to 118 seats and we expect it will increase further over the next several years. FX also benefitted non-fuel CASM by a little more than a point during the quarter. Looking ahead to the December quarter, we expect non-fuel CASM to be up about 2%, expenses related to the pay increases that go into effect on December 1 are creating about a point of pressure, while air national capacity reductions are also creating a temporary headwind for CASM as the cost takeout associated with these changes comes at a lag. Turning to fuel, our total fuel expense declined by over $1 billion in the quarter; as well market fuel prices more than offset higher consumption. Our all-in fuel price was $1.80 per gallon down from $2.90 in the same period last year. We expect this will be below the industry average price for the quarter. The refinery made a record $106 million profit this quarter, up from $19 million in the same period last…

Jill Sullivan Greer

Analyst

Thanks Richard, Ed, and Paul. And with that, Melody, we're ready for Q&A with the analysts, so if you could give them instructions on how to get into the queue.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We will go to Andrew Didora with Bank of America.

Andrew Didora

Analyst

Hi, good morning everyone. I guess my first question, Ed can you maybe provide what your flat to up 2 capacity looks like next year broken out on a domestic and international basis? And then just from a domestic perspective are there any specific markets where this growth will be concentrated or any specific market or markets you plan to build out a larger presence in like you've done in Seattle this year?

Ed Bastian

Analyst

Andrew we will provide more detail at our Investor Day in December on 2016 plans, obviously the shape of 2016 is following what you're seeing in the fourth quarter with domestic up in line with general economic growth in the U.S. and international down in the areas with the greatest FX and demand weakness.

Andrew Didora

Analyst

Got it. And then just a follow-up for Paul. I guess at this level of flat to up 2% capacity do you still feel like you can keep unit cost growth at or below 2% next year outside of any new pilots agreement?

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Yes, we do Andrew, I think the capacity is going to put a little bit pressure on unit costs but given the productivity goals that we have and the continued benefits of the leverage that we're driving in the operation we feel good about our ability to hit that goal for the year.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Darryl Genovesi with UBS.

Darryl Genovesi

Analyst

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time. So may be first on the 2016 capacity guide, if I look at your first-quarter published flight schedules it looks like you've scheduled kind of 4% capacity growth or so. Would you expect a downward revision there or are you essentially just implying a very front-end loaded year?

Ed Bastian

Analyst

That's very preliminary, Darryl. Yes we really haven't got it and made the final revisions to Q1 or for that matter any part of '16. And I just want to let you know; traditionally we've reduced the schedule as we get closer in.

Darryl Genovesi

Analyst

Okay. And then on the -- if I just look at the domestic unit revenue performance in the quarter, the down 3% number that you reported, if I were to just look at entirely domestic itineraries, would that number reflect a smaller decline because of the -- and is there an impact from essentially the accounting allocation of domestic connections on international itineraries that are weighing down the domestic number as reported?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

There's a little bit less than 1 point of domestic itineraries that are related to the international O&D.

Darryl Genovesi

Analyst

Okay. So you're saying 1% of RASM headwind or 1% is kind of the mix?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Of the 3 points a little less than 1 point is international operational itinerary that's related to the FX change.

Darryl Genovesi

Analyst

Great, thank you. And then if I could just squeeze one last one in for Paul, Paul, the comment that you made a few minutes ago about still seeing unit cost growth trending below 2% next year I assume that would be inclusive of profit sharing, is that correct?

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Yes, that's how we look at it. We'll have some geography changes in 2016. We'll highlight all that in Investor Day.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from comes from Jamie Baker with JPMorgan.

Jamie Baker

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Hey, good morning everybody and Richard you beat me to it. I thought I caught a new title for Jill in the opening remarks, so my congratulations there as well. A question for Glen. I do understand, I think we all understand the issues that are impacting international RASM. What I'm really having difficulty with is reconciling the domestic weakness. I mean, if you or I had been in a coma for five years and somebody just handed us the A4A revenue report or even your Q3 domestic RASM print, my first guess would be crap, we're in the recession again. But the fact is we aren't and other consumer sectors don't suggest this level of demand weakness. So what sort of explanation and you highlighted DPIJ in Darryl's question, but what further explanation can you provide as to why domestic RASM quite frankly stinks and more importantly what you think has to happen either at Delta or the industry level to improve upon it?

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Yes, Jamie, as a rule we don't talk about the industry we talk about Delta. So I'll talk --what that is.

Jamie Baker

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Sure, fair enough.

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst · JPMorgan.

I think Ed highlighted in his comments that we see demand as strong and we see even business itinerary demand as strong, so closed end short stay travel and corporate contracted travel are all at record levels but we are not obtaining the yields that we had in the past. And I'll just leave it at that.

Jamie Baker

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Okay. Second, not sure if this is for Ed or for Richard but and I know you don't tend to comment publicly on pilot negotiations, but when we think about profit sharing going forward what's management's tolerance for operating two succinct profit sharing schemes, one being more generous than the other? And also and I suppose I should know this but are the Air Canada 190s still up for grabs? The one that initially had been part of the fleet plan assuming a ratified TA?

Ed Bastian

Analyst · JPMorgan.

And you asked and answered the first question which is we don't generally comment on the status of pilot negotiations. We respect the process and we respect the relationship. We're perfectly inclined to run two profit sharing programs. Our regular employees have been very pleased with 14.5% raise and I think we still have -- they'll still have one of the most if not well they'll still have the most lucrative profit sharing program in the industry. And so that's on the profit sharing and what was your second question?

Jamie Baker

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Just whether the E190s, the Boeing/Air Canada E190s are still up for grab. I think Boeing had made that part of your initial aircraft agreement.

Ed Bastian

Analyst · JPMorgan.

I don’t know whether they are or not.

Jamie Baker

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Okay.

Ed Bastian

Analyst · JPMorgan.

We had signed agreement with Boeing and when the TA was rejected we had the right to terminate it and then we terminated it and all the deposits were returned to Delta. And so you have to ask Boeing about what the status of those airplanes are.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Julie Yates with Credit Suisse.

Julie Yates

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Last quarter I believe you guys called out three specific cities that were driving the bulk of the weakness in the domestic market. Is that yield weakness in Q3 still limited to a small number of markets or has it spread to be more broad-based?

Ed Bastian

Analyst

Hi, Julie, it's, Ed. Yes, it's still relatively restricted. I would -- the commentary from the second quarter is consistent with the third quarter but it's still largely restricted yes.

Julie Yates

Analyst

Okay. And then on the capacity you're pulling done internationally are those planes being retired or reallocated or is this a reduction primarily through utilization?

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst

Combination of all of those. Some are being retired, some are getting lower utilization and some are moving into the domestic market place. For example, as United exits the JFK-LA and JFK San Francisco market, we are moving a couple of our wide bodies into fill out patterns in those key markets that are the largest markets in the United States.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

But then on top of that Julie, we have 757s retiring. So we have a significant number of 757, 200s that are leaving the fleet.

Julie Yates

Analyst

Okay, great. And then lastly any update on Open Skies with Brazil and Mexico and timing there. I think Brazil was supposed to happen sometime in October.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

There is no update, we expect some time in 2016 to get those ratified.

Operator

Operator

Helane Becker with Cowen & Company has our next question.

Helane Becker

Analyst

Thanks very much, Operator. Hi guys, thank you very much for the time. Just two questions. One is can you comment at all on the type of competition you're seeing in some of your bigger cities like Atlanta and perhaps in LA specifically from low-fare airlines?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

You know, Helane, let me go at it from a macro perspective which is we have record margins in all of our hubs in the U.S. and virtually every part of the domestic business is performing at new record levels or at above record levels and that includes Seattle and LA and New York and Minneapolis and Detroit and Cincinnati and Salt Lake and Atlanta. And on top of that the focus city flying we do in places like Raleigh-Durham and Indianapolis is performing extraordinarily well. I think what the marketplace misses is that we are able to keep, if just look at the revenue picture at Delta, our revenue is relatively flat year-to-year and we're putting two-thirds of the fuel savings on the bottom line for the owners. And our focus is to manage the business for margin and cash flow. And we have a lot of leverage to do that. A fantastic product that no one in the industry can match, happy employees that are working very hard to be the best in the industry, a smart revenue management team, a very smart network planning team, the lowest capital cost in the industry on the fleet, and the maximum flexibility to manage our capacity to move back to positive RASM.

Helane Becker

Analyst

So, Richard, thank you for that. I really appreciate your answer. And I kind of wonder at the fact that the market seems to continually miss the fact that you are delivering the best product in the industry and continues to ask what do you do for an encore, you continue to deliver yet your stock price doesn't reflect it.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Well actually our market cap does reflect it and our stock price does reflect it against the industry. I think our next closest domestic peer has a market cap it's $10 billion lower. And when you look at where the P -- the forward P is where our opportunity is, is to continue to derisk the balance sheet, derisk our business model, have the best employee relations in the industry, investment grade balance sheet, and continue to move our P/E up to match our performance versus the S&P Industrials and we're going to quietly continue to do that.

Helane Becker

Analyst

That's great. Thank you. Thanks very much for your help.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

Mike Linenberg

Analyst

Yes, hey, good morning everybody. Hey, I just, I want to go back to in the non-op area some of your investments. I believe you account for Virgin Atlantic under the equity method. Can you just may be give us a feel for how much better that's running this year versus last year? And then just with the changes in your investments in some of these other carriers are they still accounted for as investments or say like a goal are you going to run that through under the equity method given your Board seat and your increased ownership stake?

Ed Bastian

Analyst

Hi, Mike, it's Ed. On Virgin, the Q3 results they had were fairly comparable to what they had a year ago, little bit better. They had some fairly large fuel hedging losses, so they haven't gotten as much of the pass-through on the lower fuel savings. But we expect that's going to get increasingly better next year. And the answer to your second question is no, we treat the China Eastern and GOL and Aeromexico investments still on the cost method. So we don't take the share profit or loss in the quarter.

Mike Linenberg

Analyst

Good. And then just one other and this is either for Ed or Paul. Your earnings progression has been fantastic on one hand. On the other hand it does get you closer to the point where you will start paying cash taxes. When I look at sort of where the numbers are in our forecast for next year it seems like sometime next year you may be a cash taxpayer may be in the latter part of the year. Is that right or do we still have enough NOLs that may be we get into 2017? What's your thoughts on that?

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Hi, good morning, Mike, it's Paul.

Mike Linenberg

Analyst

Hey, Paul.

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Go back to what we have talked about in May when we laid out our long-term plan, we anticipate that we will have some cash taxes until 2017 at our current trajectory but wouldn't become a full payer until 2018. That's consistent and you've got to be careful with the differences between GAAP and tax accounting for big areas like depreciation on fleet et cetera.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Let Mike -- let me -- we're going to update at Investor Day on our tax rate going forward in 2016 and this is another differentiator for Delta that goes back to our international focus and our minority investments, equity investments around the world in our joint venture strategies. We can have an advantage tax position versus our domestic competitors and we're going to update that at our Investor Day in December.

Mike Linenberg

Analyst

Great. Looking forward to it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Fintzen with Barclays.

David Fintzen

Analyst · Barclays.

Hey, good morning everyone. A question for Glen. On the international side particularly Pacific obviously there's currency, there's probably demand as you highlighted, there's also surcharges that in some cases had to come out really quick. As you start to overlap that and you get into '16, do some of that surcharge revenue can you take that back into base pricing as you go a long? Or is that something we should just think is sort of gone until oil comes back?

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst · Barclays.

Well we have the currency headwinds which will as forward curves go from about $700 million this year to about $150 million next year. And then, as fuel stabilizes, we will of course attempt to raise fares as we always do but that will depend on what the market is and that's based on individual market performance. So we see strong demand, we see strong demand through the winter and into the spring already, and our load factors are running ahead in every entity including domestic throughout rest of the year. So hopefully who knows what's going to happen in the future but it looks like it's shaping up to be pretty good year in '16.

David Fintzen

Analyst · Barclays.

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then just in terms of the 4Q RASM guidance would you be willing to split that kind of domestic international or at least kind of speak to does the decline in moderate kind of reasonably evenly across different segments or entities? Or is there something that really stands out particularly, does domestic inflect as much?

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst · Barclays.

We're not going to break that out, David. We never do but you see that the trends that we've seen this year and you probably can draw your own conclusions.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Rajeev Lalwani with Morgan Stanley.

Rajeev Lalwani

Analyst

Hi, thanks for the time. I just wanted to come back to your capacity guide and may be just better understand what factors we should look at to get you to may be a higher end or the lower end of that this year too and whether it's PRASM or margin in the economy? Just some color there would be great.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

All of the above.

Rajeev Lalwani

Analyst

Okay, easy enough. Then I guess a related question to that, to the extent as we look into next year demand starts to really weaken, et cetera, be it the economy or otherwise how aggressive do you think you could be with pulling down capacity just to keep supply demand balance?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Look, I mean, we stay focused on margin and margin expansion and free cash flow we have many levers to drive those factors in our -- or those outcomes in our business. One of the things that we're fortunate at Delta in addition to having the most reliable fleet when we only cancelled 18 flights in the month of September tells you a lot about the fleet that we operate at the same time that we have a lot of paid-for airplanes. And the lever that we have in the business is that paid-for airplane if you decide to put 757 down it also becomes a parts depot for the rest of the fleet. So you not only have a good lever from the standpoint managing capacity it's also a non-fuel CASM play.

Rajeev Lalwani

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

We have plenty of those -- we have optionality, we like optionality across our business. And so we view our fleet the same way as they're optional, many of those assets are optional assets.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Paul, I wanted to ask you about hedging. Have you started adding positions into 2016 and can you tell us what the hedge loss you're baking in for the fourth quarter fuel guide and what the magnitude of the losses are at this point into 2016?

Paul Jacobson

Analyst

Hey, good morning, Duane thanks for the question. As we talked about we are only about 5% hedged for 2016. We obviously have taken this environment and been very cautious and slow about it as we look into to the year. We said in our prepared remarks that we got about $250 million of losses in the fourth quarter but about 70% to 80% downside participation all the way down to $40 a barrel in Brent. So as we go into 2016 obviously we have a tailwind behind us on fuel price because of the hedge losses in the first half of this year. But we're pretty cautious on where we go given the forward curve and the option premiums that you have to spend and put hedges on right now.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Analyst

Okay and then may be just a different tack on the same question regarding your desire to control input costs. Have you evaluated expanding your presence in the energy industry beyond just owning a refinery? Have you looked at any potential domestic production assets?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

No, we haven't.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Savi Syth with Raymond James.

Savi Syth

Analyst · Raymond James.

Hey, good morning. Just a quick follow-up on some of the 2016 capacity questions. Is it fair to assume just given the current environment that domestic capacity growth would be similar to 2015 and 2016?

Glen Hauenstein

Analyst · Raymond James.

I think it's early to comment on the intricacies of what 2016 turns out to be and I think what Richard pointed to earlier is the flexibility that this company has to respond to market demands as they evolve. And so I think we will give more color as what we think in December as we get to our Investor Day Conference. But we are always moving airplanes around or grounding them or whatever it takes to achieve our margin expansion that we need to. And while we like to say we have a full vision as to what next year's economy is going to be we don't. And so what we can say is we think it's 0 to 2 for next year as we sit down today and we will make those adjustments as we get closer into it capitalize on where we see opportunities.

Richard Anderson

Analyst · Raymond James.

I think the thing that people don't have a full appreciation for just how rapidly we adjust to markets. And if you even just think out about 2015 and what we said we were going to do in December of '14, in fourth quarter 2015, situations change, currencies got weak in Brazil, currency got weak in Japan, fuel surcharges ran off, sanctions in Russia, and we've responded very quickly. And that's the wonderful thing about what these assets are. If you own a hotel in Manhattan and something doesn't go well in Manhattan and you can't move the hotel? Right. But we can take our frequencies in Venezuela down to one a week and we could take Russia down to one a week and you don't see all those moves, but the reason why we have ever expanding margins is at some point the Street just needs to understand that we're going to continue to manage the business to drive margin and free cash flow and we have a lot of leverage to do that.

Savi Syth

Analyst · Raymond James.

Good plan. Just specifically on the fuel side I know you mentioned that two-thirds of the fuel declines have been captured to the bottom-line. I wonder if that's despite your kind of fuel hedge drag and is it your contention that may be if you didn't have the fuel hedge drag you'd still be able to have a similar capture and so may be the fare environment is may be stronger than that two-thirds would imply?

Ed Bastian

Analyst · Raymond James.

Savi, it's Ed. I wouldn't try to draw any correlations to the fuel hedge. The two-thirds we're looking at was really the current quarter the September quarter we did. We had modest hedge losses. It wasn't material and compared to the first two quarters anyway. And you also have to take into account that two-thirds is a bit of a macro estimate, it's much higher on the domestic, I think domestic we were probably capturing 80% to 90% of the fuel savings. But internationally because of the currency weakness as well as demand weakness that's limiting our ability to capture as much as the fuel. So in total it's about two-thirds but very high domestically which is where we're growing and it's weaker internationally which is where we're shrinking.

Savi Syth

Analyst · Raymond James.

Okay, that's very helpful. And if I could just ask one last one, on the regional fleet I know we saw the complaint filed again Republic. Should we be concerned with the impact of securing regional fee on kind of capacity plans or costs?

Richard Anderson

Analyst · Raymond James.

No, you shouldn't be -- we're not going to comment specifically on the litigation but you shouldn't be concerned about that. We just like our partners to keep their deals.

Jill Sullivan Greer

Analyst · Raymond James.

And Melody, we're going to have time for one more question from the analysts.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That will be from Joseph DeNardi with Stifel.

Sam McKelvey

Analyst

Hi, it's Sam McKelvey on for Joe DeNardi. What sort of pressure is the Gulf carrier issue having on your relationship with Air France-KLM? Are they wanting to add more capacity onto the Atlantic than you view is necessary to offset some of the share they are losing in other markets?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Well first our relationship with Air France-KLM couldn't be better. Our combined margins in the Transatlantic couldn't be better in terms of the cut we're setting all time contribution margins in that joint venture. And it's by far the model of joint ventures in the world. We don't, as Glen said earlier, we're not commenting yet other than zero to two on our network and we're still building our business plan, we will give more color about what our forward capacity is. But in terms of our relationship with Air France-KLM I mean we're tightly synced in our operations, capacity planning, and distribution.

Jill Sullivan Greer

Analyst

That's going to conclude the analyst portion of the phone call. Before I turn it over to Kevin and the corp comm team just to have everybody save the date for December 17 for our Annual Investor Day and with that I will turn it over for the media unit.

Kevin Shinkle

Analyst

Good morning. I'm Kevin Shinkle, our Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer. Welcome to the media portion of our call. We have about 10 minutes to ask questions. So please limit yourself to one question and one brief follow-up. Melody, could you please try to give any instructions on how to register to ask a question.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. We'll go to Michael Sasso with Bloomberg News.

Michael Sasso

Analyst

Good morning. Yes, I had there's kind of the rumor mill has been hot lately about Delta looking at some 777s coming out of Singapore. Can you just talk about that and is there any truth to that?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

Yes, I'd be glad to. Well we're seeing a huge bubble in excess wide-body airplanes around the world and we've been approached by more than one party. I mean the market appears to be the 777-200s about 9 to 10 years old the price is about $10 million. And on A330-200 the lease rate is about a fifth of what it would be new. So we do think that the aircraft market is going to be right for Delta and over the course of the next 12 to 36 months and we think that that weakness in that aircraft bubble in wide-bodies is going to spread to narrow-bodies and that there will be some huge buying opportunities because low interest rates really have created a huge wide-body bubble in the world. Singapore Airlines, I think has 70 of these airplanes that are coming off lease or being retired that are 8 to 10 years old.

Michael Sasso

Analyst

Just a follow-up. So is there a deal with actually in the works or recently completed for?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

There's no deal on the works we just -- it's a relatively small market in the world right there is not many people in the world that can take a dozen 777s, right, there's a handful of customers. It's a very small market, it's a very transparent market, and we get calls all the time. There is no deal. Prices are going to get lower; you wouldn't strike a deal now.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Edward Russell with Flightglobal.

Edward Russell

Analyst

Hi yes. You mentioned the acquisition of six slot pairs at London Heathrow and looking at your schedules in 2016 at here and in Salt Lake City. Could you give some insight on to how well you plan to use those new slot pairs?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

We already operate in slot pairs.

Edward Russell

Analyst

A follow-up then, there is replacing slot that you have lease agreements coming up on or?

Richard Anderson

Analyst

The slots that we have leased previously for a number of years for Air France-KLM that we're just turning that we're purchasing instead of leasing. We will have more flexibility to slot them around with our partners at Virgin Atlantic.

Operator

Operator

David Koenig with The Associated Press has our next question.

David Koenig

Analyst

Hi, thanks. I have a parochial question this time. We're waiting for a ruling in the Dallas Love Field litigation and I wonder whether you think if there's an adverse ruling or whatever ruling winds up would have it have an precedent setting affect that other gate or slot restrained airports or the -- the terms and situations so unique in Dallas that it would not.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

No. If Love Field is such an anomaly if you just step back and think about it, the city of Dallas is -- will be the first time in modern aviation that an airport and interstate commerce where the operators trying to evict and interstate commerce operator. I think it’s actually the opposite and it won't have any effect.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Sheryl Jean with Dallas Morning News.

Sheryl Jean

Analyst

Hi, I have a similar question along those lines at Dallas Love Fields. Can you give any insight into whether you're planning to appeal if the judge in that case does make an adverse ruling for Delta?

Peter Carter

Analyst

This is Peter Carter. We would intend to appeal any adverse ruling.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

And we still have administrative actions in front of the Federal Aviation Administration to revoke AIP grants in the PFCs they collect.

Sheryl Jean

Analyst

Thank you.

Richard Anderson

Analyst

You're welcome.

Kevin Shinkle

Analyst

Well, thank you. With that, that was the last question that will conclude our third quarter earnings conference call. Thanks to everyone for listening.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, again, that does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.