Shares of JetBlue Airways Corp. jumped 1.7% in premarket trading Tuesday, after the air carrier reported a narrower-than-loss as revenue fell less than forecast, and said it reached breakeven cash from operations in March. Net losses narrowed to $247 million, or 78 cents a share, from $268 million, or 97 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, the adjusted loss per share was $1.48, compared with the FactSet per-share loss consensus of $1.69. Total revenue dropped 53.9% to $733 million, but topped the FactSet consensus of $687.3 million. Load factor declined to 63.9% from 69.8%, but beat expectations of 56.8%, as traffic fell 44.1% while capacity declined 39.0%. “Although our EPS remains in negative territory, we have seen meaningful progress in the demand recovery, and have started to gain momentum from the groundwork we have laid to emerge from the crisis as a stronger JetBlue,” said Chief Executive Robin Hayes. JetBlue’s stock has run up 41.5% year to date through Monday, while the U.S. Global Jets ETF has rallied 17.7% and the S&P 500 has gained 11.5%.
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