JetBlue Q3 Profit Tops View - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) Tuesday said its net income for the third quarter was $198 million, or $0.58 per share, compared to $79 million, or $0.24 per share last year.

On average, 14 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.57 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Operating revenues were $1.7 billion, compared to $1.53 billion last year. Analysts expected revenues of $ 1.69 billion.

Revenue passenger miles for the third quarter increased 9.2 percent to 11.1 billion on a capacity increase of 10.4 percent. This led to a third quarter load factor of 85.3 percent, a decrease of 0.9 point year over year.

"We posted another strong result in the third quarter as our revenue growth outperformed the industry and we ran an efficient and safe operation. These results are a testament to the hard work of our 18,000 crewmembers that provide outstanding customer service and inspire humanity each day." said Robin Hayes, JetBlue's President and CEO.

Looking ahead, CASM excluding fuel and profit sharing is expected to increase between zero and 2 percent in the fourth quarter 2015 and between zero and 1 percent for the full year. This represents a 0.5 percent reduction to the top end of the company's full year CASM excluding fuel and profit sharing guidance range.

Capacity is expected to increase between 8.5 and 10.5 percent in the fourth quarter 2015 and between 8.5 and 9.5 percent for the full year.

The 0.5 percent increase to the high end of the full year capacity guidance range is a function of additional Mint service driven by higher utilization of the Mint fleet, and continued better than expected completion factor.