JetBlue continues its quarterly losing streak, but its loss isn’t as bad as Wall Street expected

JetBlue continued its quarterly losing streak when it reported third-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning, but its loss wasn’t as deep as analysts expected.

The carrier posted a net loss of $143 million, compared to Wall Street’s estimate of $154 million. The airline, which boosted its Q3 sales outlook last month, bumped its capacity by 1% in the quarter ended in September, in line with its forecast from July. JetBlue shares ticked down more than 1% in premarket trading.

• The company reported a loss per share of $0.40, beating analyst estimates of a $0.43 loss per share.

• Revenue was $2.32 billion, in line with estimates and down about 2% year over year.

• In the year through September, JetBlue has flown 29.6 million passengers, down more than 3% from the same stretch last year.

JetBlue’s costs per seat mile excluding fuel grew 4.6% from last year, in line with its forecast.

“We are optimistic the demand environment will continue to improve through the end of the year,“ said JetBlue President Marty St. George, who added that demand for premium seats is expected to be stronger than core economy offerings. JetBlue said premium revenue per seat mile was 6 points higher versus core, in line with other airlines’ Q3 results.

For the rest of the year, JetBlue said it expects its costs per seat mile to grow between 3% and 5% in Q4. The airline anticipates those costs to grow between 5% and 6% for the full year, a narrower range than it previously forecast.

During the third quarter, investors piled into JetBlue stock when low-cost rival Spirit filed for bankruptcy in August. Wall Street sees JetBlue and Frontier Airlines as the biggest beneficiaries of Spirit’s troubles, and both carriers have attempted to purchase Spirit in recent years. Earlier this month, Spirit told investors it was “actively engaged in discussions with a number of interested counterparties,” reigniting rumors of a potential acquisition.