Delta cutting flights to ‘relieve pressure’
Delta Air Lines Inc. is cutting flights just ahead of the busy Memorial Day weekend and through the summer to help it recover faster from bad weather, higher-thanexpected worker absences and other issues that have rattled recent operations.
The airline said it will trim about 100 flights a day in the U.S. and Latin America from July 1 through Aug. 7 to help bolster reliability for remaining flights. Delta said additional adjustments could be made, hinting at possible further reductions. The nearer-term cancellations for the upcoming holiday weekend, initially disclosed in a memo sent to employees late Wednesday, are designed “to relieve pressure by pro-actively thinning the schedule over Memorial Day and through the balance of June.”
Weather, vendor staffing and air traffic control issues, along with higher-than-expected absences among airline work groups, are affecting Delta’s operations “more than any time in our history,” the memo from Chief of Operations John Laughter and Allison Ausband, chief customer experience officer, said.
Packed planes over the summer could make it difficult for airlines to move thousands of stranded passengers to other flights. It could take several days for some travelers affected by the latest Delta cuts to reach their destination, Robert Mann, president of consultant R.W. Mann & Co., said in an interview.
“It’s consistent with what we’ve seen by others in the industry; it’s just late in the game,” Mann said. “It’s really late in the game if you’re flying over the Memorial Day weekend. It’s embarrassingly late for that.”
Delta’s latest reductions account for about 2% of its scheduled flights during the July through early August period.
Solid retail reports push markets up
Stocks closed broadly higher on Wall Street Thursday as investors cheered a strong set of quarterly results from Macy’s and other retailers.
The S&P 500 rose 2% and is on pace for its first weekly gain after seven consecutive losses, its longest such stretch since 2001.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.6% and the Nasdaq gained 2.7%. Smaller company stocks also made strong gains, a sign of bullishness on the economy.
Bond yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set interest rates on mortgages, rose to 2.75% from 2.74% late Wednesday.
Roughly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 rose, with technology companies, banks and retailers driving much of the rally. While trading has remained choppy this week, the market has mostly pushed higher, unlike the past five weeks, when the S&P 500 had a pullback of 2% or more at least one day each week.
“It’s nice to see a couple days in the green and this might actually end up being the first week when we don’t have a humongous down day,” said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi. “But I wouldn’t declare premature victory and assume we’re in the clear.”
The S&P 500 rose 79.11 points to 4,057.84. The
Dow was up 516.91 points to 32,637.19 and the Nasdaq rose 305.91 points to 11,740.65.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies climbed 39.07 points, or 2.2%, to 1,838.24.
Retailers led the broader market higher Thursday. Macy’s surged 19.3% after it raised its profit forecast for the year following a strong first-quarter financial report. Dollar General vaulted 13.7% and Dollar Tree jumped 21.9% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after the discount retailers reported solid earnings and gave investors encouraging forecasts.