The headline pre-tax annual loss excludes the $3.8 billion US government support for Delta’s payroll. 

Delta recorded a $1.1 billion pre-tax profit as US domestic traffic recovered in the second half of 2021. After exceptional items this contributed $386 million and chief executive Ed Bastian said the carrier was the only major US airline to be profitable in the second part of 2021.

Bastian said he had authorised a special profit-sharing payment for all eligible employees, but warned:

“Omicron is expected to temporarily delay the demand recovery 60 days, but… we are confident in a strong spring and summer travel season with significant pent-up demand for consumer and business travel.”

Delta said December had seen revenues reach almost 80% of 2019 levels following strong demand over Christmas.

“Our premium products continued to perform well, we saw encouraging trends in business and international travel and our diverse revenue streams remained resilient,” said Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s president.

He added: “The recent rise in Covid cases associated with the Omicron variant is expected to impact the pace of demand recovery early in the quarter, with recovery momentum resuming from President’s Day weekend (21 February) forward.  

“Factoring this into our outlook, we expect total March quarter revenue to recover to 72 to 76% of 2019 levels, compared to 74% in the December quarter.”