Delta Air Lines (DAL) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023.

Apr 13, 2023, 10:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks

Matthew--Operator

My name is Matthew, and I will be your coordinator. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode until we conduct a question and answer session following the presentation. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star one on your phone to enter the analyst questions queue at any time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Julie Stewart, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Julie Stewart-- Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Matthew. And good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for the March quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining us from Atlanta today are our CEO, Ed Bastion, our President, Glen Hauenstein, and our CFO, Dan Janky. We'll open the call with an overview of Delta's performance and strategy. Glenn will provide an update on the revenue environment, and Dan will discuss costs and our balance sheet. After the prepared remarks, we'll take analyst questions. We ask you to please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up so we can get to as many of you as possible. After the analysts' Q&A, we will move to our media questions. 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 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, and all results exclude special items unless otherwise noted. You can find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on the investor relations page at irs.delta.com. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.

Ed Bastion -- Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thanks, Julie. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. 2023 is off to a strong start for Delta with record advanced summer bookings, the launch of free Wi-Fi, and continued recognition as the industry leader not only by our customers, but by Fortune and the Wall Street Journal.

During the March quarter, we generated earnings of 25 cents per share on revenue that was 45% above last year, and a record for the March quarter. Delta's operating income was $550 million, a more than $1 billion improvement year over year, bringing our trailing 12-month operating profit to nearly $5 billion. We generated close to $2 billion of free cash flow in the quarter, reflecting robust demand for summer travel.