JetBlue's Revenue Grows on Lower Fuel Prices

JetBlue Airways Corp. said its revenue grew 7.9% in the June quarter, as the airline continued to benefit from lower fuel prices and higher traffic.

The airline had hedges in place for about a fifth of its fuel consumption. This resulted in a fuel price of $2.13 a gallon, down 31% from the year earlier. But the company still recorded $30 million in losses on fuel hedges in the second quarter.

For the current quarter, 14% of its fuel has been hedged, and the company expects an average price per gallon of $1.95. For the fourth quarter, JetBlue has hedged 15% of projected fuel consumption.

For the current quarter, capacity—a metric that has been watched closely in the airline sector on concerns that airlines may be making too many seats available—is expected to grow between 8.5% and 10.5%.

Overall, JetBlue reported profit of $152 million, or 44 cents a share, down from $230 million, or 68 cents a share, a year earlier. The year-earlier quarter's profit was boosted by a $242 million gain on the sale of a subsidiary.

Revenue grew to $1.61 billion from $1.49 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had been expecting earnings of 44 cents a share on revenue of $1.62 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue passenger miles increased 8.7% to $10.5 billion as capacity grew 7.5%. Load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, grew to 85.6% from 64.6%. Passenger revenue per available seat mile, a key industry metric, increased 1.4% to 12.22 cents.

Operating expenses fell 1.7%.

Shares, which edged up 0.1% in premarket trading on Tuesday, have risen more than 40% this year.

Write to Angela Chen at [e-mail]