Sometimes you don’t need a big win on an earnings report to see a stock surge. Just ask airline stock SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW), who saw shares climb over 17% in Friday afternoon’s trading. The earnings report may not have been the best news, but it was good enough for investors.
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Earnings came in at -$0.45 per share, against expectations calling for -$0.33. However, revenue proved a better bargain, as the $692 million SkyWest posted was sufficient to beat projections of $673.84 million. However, it’s worth noting that revenue was down 5.9% year-over-year, and this is in an environment where people are traveling a lot more than they have in the last two years.
Nevertheless, SkyWest revealed it managed to reduce its debt load. Not by much—it went from $3.4 billion at the end of last quarter to $3.3 billion at the end of this one—but it’s a step in a good direction. The company also recently announced a measure to address one of the biggest problems in air travel today: a lack of qualified pilots. SkyWest’s new SkyWest Charter service now has all the Federal Aviation Administration to operate as a charter airline except one: commuter authority to operate scheduled charter flights.
In addition, hedge fund confidence is currently Very Positive after buying an extra 2.6 million shares in the last quarter. Considering that hedge funds owned just over 115,000 shares of SkyWest at the end of the third quarter of 2022, that’s a massive increase. It’s also a clear sign someone expects something big out of SkyWest.
