JetBlue Airways Projects Capacity To Increase In Q1, 2016 - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - While reporting its financial results for the fourth quarter today, JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) provided its outlook for the first quarter and fiscal 2016.

For the first quarter of 2016, JetBlue said that change in operating expense per available seat mile or CASM excluding fuel and profit sharing is expected to be between 0.0 percent and negative 2.0 percent versus the year-ago period. Excluding fuel and profit sharing, CASM for the full year 2016 is forecast to grow between zero and two percent year over year.

The company expects capacity is to increase between 14 percent and 16 percent in the first quarter 2016 and between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent for the full year.

Severe winter weather caused a significant number of flight cancellations in the first quarter of 2015. This increased JetBlue's 2016 capacity growth rate compared to a scheduled versus scheduled basis by about 2.5 percent in the first quarter and 0.5 percent for the full year.

JetBlue noted that outlook does not include the impact of Winter Storm Jonas, which caused over 900 flight cancellations within the last week.