Air Lease (AL) Q4 Earnings & Revenues Beat Estimates
Air Lease Corporation AL reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2023 results wherein both earnings and revenues surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
AL’s quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of $1.89 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.1 and improved 56.2% on a year-over-year basis. Upbeat revenues aided the results.
Total revenues of $716.6 million outpaced the consensus estimate of $683.5 million and surged 19.11% year over year, owing to continuous growth in the company’s fleet and an increase in lease revenues.
Other Statistics
Revenues from the rental of flight equipment climbed 14.75% year over year to $644.07 million in the reported quarter. Revenues from aircraft sales, trading activity and other sources grew 79.77% from the year-ago quarter to $72.49 million. Operating expenses increased 64.9% year over year to $517.2 million.
During the December quarter, the company took delivery of 22 aircraft from its order book. This represented $1.2 billion in aircraft investments. Riding on the new deliveries, AL ended 2023 with 463 aircraft in its owned fleet and more than $30 billion in total assets.
Air Lease exited the quarter with $460.87 million in cash and cash equivalents, down 39.86% year over year. Debt financing, net of discount and issuance costs, amounted to $19.18 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, up 2.9% year over year.
Air Lease’s board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 21 cents per share. The next quarterly dividend of 21 cents per share will be paid on Apr 10, 2024, to shareholders of record as of Mar 15, 2024.
Currently, Air Lease carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Q4 Performance of Some Other Transportation Stocks
American Airlines’ AAL fourth-quarter 2023 earnings (excluding 26 cents from non-recurring items) of 29 cents per share easily beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 6 cents.
Operating revenues of $13.06 billion decreased 1% year over year. The top line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $13.02 billion. Passenger and cargo revenues declined to $12.01 billion and $199 million, respectively. On the flip side, other revenues surged 7.2% year over year to $853 million.
CSX’s CSX fourth-quarter 2023 EPS of 45 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 44 cents. The bottom line declined 8.2% year over year.
CSX generated total revenues of $3,680 million, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3,637.8 million. Fourth-quarter operating income fell 10% to $1.32 billion.Merchandise revenues improved 5% year over year to $2.18 billion. Intermodal revenues fell 4% year over year to $552 million. Coal revenues fell 1% year over year to $620 million in the reported quarter.
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