JetBlue Airways Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

JetBlue Airways (NAS: JBLU) met its estimates last quarter, but investors hope that it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Jan. 26. JetBlue Airways is a passenger airline that provides competitive fares mainly on point-to-point routes.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on JetBlue Airways, as five analysts rate it as a buy and only two analysts rate it as a sell. Analysts don't like JetBlue Airways as much as competitor US Airways Group overall. While analysts still rate the stock a hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.13 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 20.2% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.03 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.02 to a profit of $0.08.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 81.5% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 82.3% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on JetBlue Airways and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 630 posts in the past 30 days. JetBlue Airways' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
JetBlue Airways' income has fallen year over year by an average of more than twofold over the past five quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 7.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 16% while cost of sales rose 32.6% to $745 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

37.7%

37.4%

37.6%

41.3%

Operating Margin

9%

7.5%

4.4%

6.1%

Net Margin

2.9%

2.2%

0.3%

1%

For all our JetBlue Airways-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add JetBlue Airways to My Watchlist.

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.

At the time thisarticle was published

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