Delta Air Lines (DAL) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results and Next Report Date

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and Delta Air Lines published the results on October 9, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. Delta Air Lines reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and adjusted, which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• Delta's GAAP operating revenue includes sales of refined products to third parties by its Monroe Energy refinery ($2,601 million this quarter). Delta's adjusted operating revenue of $17,585 million excludes them.
• Delta's guidance figures are non-GAAP measures. Its 2026 outlook calls for full-year EPS of $5.10 to $5.60.

Source: Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 results, October 9, 2026. Also in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Figures as reported; checked against the release on November 10, 2026.

How Delta Air Lines splits revenue in its own release, under its own labels, for Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Indented lines are parts of the line above them.

• Delta Air Lines's Passenger revenue was $15.5 billion in Q3 2026, up 15% from $13.5 billion in Q3 2025, 77% of total revenue.
• Delta Air Lines's Cargo revenue was $301 million in Q3 2026, up 29% from $233 million in Q3 2025, 1% of total revenue.
• Delta Air Lines's Other revenue was $4.4 billion in Q3 2026, up 48% from $2.9 billion in Q3 2025, 22% of total revenue.

Segment lines are the figures writers cite most often, because they show where the growth in a quarter came from. Companies redraw their segments from time to time and restate the prior year to match, so a year-ago figure here can differ from the one printed a year ago. When that has happened, the note above says so.

From the earnings release

In its Q3 2026 release, Delta Air Lines said:

“Revenue momentum is continuing in the December quarter, with strength across all products and geographies, supporting our outlook for total revenue growth of approximately 20 percent over last year.”

“In the December quarter, we expect earnings of $1.15 to $1.65 per share, based on a fuel price of approximately $4.25 per gallon.”

“Guidance for the December quarter assumes fuel at the forward curve as of October 2, 2026, and includes a refinery benefit of approximately $0.40 per gallon.”

“For the full year, we expect to deliver free cash flow of approximately $2.5 billion and pay down more than $2 billion of debt, positioning us to end the year with gross leverage of approximately 2.2x”

Source: Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026.

This is the company's own guidance as of Oct 9, 2026, quoted as given. Walnut does not make forecasts of its own. Analyst estimates for the coming quarters are on the DAL forecast page.

Revenue and diluted EPS for the last 5 quarters. Each date links to that quarter's release.

GAAP operating revenue (including third-party refinery sales) and GAAP diluted EPS, each as first reported in that quarter's release.

Delta Air Lines's next report is expected around January 13, 2027, a date estimated from its reporting history that the company has not yet confirmed. This page will show Q3 2026 until those results are out and have been checked against the release.

Each quarter keeps its own page with the figures as reported, so a link to one stays pointed at the same numbers after the next report.

• Q3 2026 (this page), reported Oct 9, 2026

Delta Air Lines reported GAAP operating revenue of $20,186 million in Q3 2026, against $16,673 million a year earlier. Passenger revenue was $15,534 million, cargo $301 million and other revenue $4,351 million. Other revenue includes $2,601 million of refinery sales to third parties by Delta's Monroe Energy subsidiary; without them, Delta's adjusted operating revenue was $17,585 million, up 16%. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's premium ticket revenue grew faster than its main cabin revenue. Premium products brought in $6,818 million, up 18%, and main cabin tickets $6,802 million, up 12%. Capacity was flat: available seat miles were 79,288 million against 79,054 million, while passenger mile yield rose 14% to 22.80 cents. Delta says its diverse revenue streams accounted for 61 percent of total revenue in the quarter. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's Domestic passenger revenue was $10,594 million, up 16%, with Atlantic at $3,317 million (up 11%), Latin America at $867 million (up 14%) and Pacific at $756 million (up 13%). Latin America unit revenue rose 22% on 6% less capacity, and Pacific revenue grew on 8% more capacity. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's loyalty business rests on its co-brand credit card with American Express. Remuneration from American Express was $2.3 billion in Q3 2026 and $8.2 billion in 2025, and Delta's release says the full year is positioned to exceed $9 billion. Loyalty and related revenue was $1,346 million in the quarter, up 19%, and loyalty travel awards $1,302 million. MRO revenue from Delta TechOps third-party maintenance was $296 million, up 28%. (Delta Air Lines Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 9, 2026; Delta Air Lines Form 10-K, 2025, Feb 11, 2026; Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's Monroe refinery typically produces about 200,000 barrels of refined products a day and supplies jet fuel to the airline. It had an operating loss of $33 million in Q3 2026, against operating income of $53 million a year earlier, which Delta attributes to volatile crude pricing and a temporary outage that halted production from the middle of June 2026. (Delta Air Lines Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta Air Lines' GAAP diluted EPS fell 47% to $1.15 in Q3 2026, while adjusted EPS rose to $1.72 from $1.70. The gap is mostly two items Delta excludes: $218 million of mark-to-market losses on its equity investments and $208 million of mark-to-market adjustments and settlements on hedges. A year earlier the same investments produced a $311 million gain, which lifted GAAP net income to $1,417 million against $756 million this quarter. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Fuel was Delta's largest cost pressure. Fuel expense rose 69% to $4,351 million as the average price per gallon climbed from $2.26 to $3.80, and CFO Erik Snell said Delta absorbed more than $500 million of higher fuel costs than it had assumed in its early-July guidance. Non-fuel unit cost (CASM-Ex) rose 7.3% to 14.03 cents, which Delta put down to higher crew and revenue-related costs. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's diluted weighted average shares were 659 million, against 654 million a year earlier. Delta has a $1.0 billion share repurchase program authorized in the June 2025 quarter, and no shares had been repurchased under it through September 30, 2026. The board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.2150 per share, and Delta projects a 2026 effective tax rate of 23% to 25%, excluding mark-to-market adjustments on equity investments. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026; Delta Air Lines Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 9, 2026)

Diluted EPS divides net income by the weighted average number of shares outstanding in the quarter, plus the shares that options and other equity awards could add. Buybacks shrink that count and lift EPS for the same profit; share issuance and stock awards enlarge it.

Delta Air Lines publishes numeric guidance in its release. For the December quarter of 2026 it guided total revenue growth of approximately 20% over last year, an operating margin of 7% to 9% and EPS of $1.15 to $1.65. For the full year 2026 it guided EPS of $5.10 to $5.60, free cash flow of approximately $2.5 billion and gross leverage of approximately 2.2x. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

Delta's December quarter guidance assumes fuel at the forward curve as of October 2, 2026, including a refinery benefit of about $0.40 per gallon, for an all-in fuel price of approximately $4.25 per gallon. Delta said EPS consistent with last year would come at the upper end of that range. (Delta Air Lines September quarter 2026 release, Oct 9, 2026)

A consensus figure is the average of the models published by the analysts who cover Delta Air Lines, collected by a data provider and revised up to the day of the report. A quarter that lands above it says how expectations were set as much as how the business did, and the share price on the day also reflects the guidance and the lines no consensus covers.

The consensus figures on this page are Yahoo Finance's, as pulled on the date shown. Each comes with the number of analysts behind it; the smaller that number, the more one revised estimate can move the average.

The figures below are the ones Delta Air Lines's own release and filings put weight on for Q3 2026, with the latest reported value for each.

What the quarter means for a holding is a separate question from what it reported. The case for and against owning DAL is on is DAL a buy or a sell?, what analysts expect next is on the DAL forecast, and what the company does is on the Delta Air Lines (DAL) stock page.

Every number on this page can be traced to a document Delta Air Lines published. Checking one takes a couple of minutes, and it is worth doing before you quote a figure anywhere.

• The results release is the document linked in the source line above. Companies publish it on their investor relations site at the moment results go out, and it carries the headline tables: revenue, operating income, net income and EPS for the quarter and the year-ago quarter.
• The same release is filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K under Item 2.02, usually on the day of the report. The SEC copy does not change after the fact, which makes it the safer thing to link when you cite a number.
• The quarterly report (Form 10-Q) follows within a few weeks and carries the full financial statements, the segment note and management's discussion of what changed. The fourth quarter is covered by the annual report (Form 10-K) instead.
• Restated comparisons are flagged in the notes on this page. When a company redraws its segments or changes how it adjusts EPS, it restates the year-ago column, so the year-ago figure in a new release can differ from the one printed a year ago. This page always uses the comparison in the newer release, because that is the like-for-like one.

A walk-through of every line in a release, with what each one tells you, is in how to read an earnings report.