US Airways Group Inc. on Tuesday posted a first-quarter profit, reversing a year-ago loss, as revenue surged in the wake of the airline's merger with America West.
The airline reported quarterly earnings of $65 million, or 76 cents per share, compared with a loss of $174 million, or $6.58 per share, a year ago. Excluding special items, the company posted a profit of $5 million, or 5 cents per share, versus a loss of $16 million, or $1.09 per share, in the year-earlier quarter.
US Airways said its results are compared with America West's standalone results for the first quarter of 2005, before America West acquired US Airways in September 2005. The combination was structured so that America West - the acquiring company - became a subsidiary of US Airways Group.
Per-share results were affected by a change in the number of shares outstanding: About 93.4 million in the recent quarter versus 25.7 million in the 2005 quarter.
Analysts expected a loss of 16 cents per share, according to a Thomson Financial poll.
Operating revenue surged to $2.65 billion from $733 million a year ago. Analysts' revenue target for the recent quarter was $2.61 billion.
Passenger traffic more than doubled in the quarter to 16.39 billion revenue passenger miles from 6.37 billion the year before. A revenue passenger mile equals one paying passenger flown one mile.
Capacity expanded in the quarter to 21.89 billion available seat miles from 8.28 billion. Occupancy dipped to 74.9 percent from 76.9 percent.
Shares of US Airways rose $1.16, or 2.4 percent, to $48.46 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.
