Alaska Air raises profit forecast on summer demand, outage-linked bookings

(Reuters) – Alaska Air (NYSE:ALK) Group raised its third-quarter profit forecast on Thursday, benefiting from strong summer travel demand and re-bookings from passengers stranded due to flight cancellations caused by a global cyber outage in July.

The cyber outage caused by a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) forced multiple airlines to halt flight operations while leaving thousands of passengers stranded across the nation.

However, it also benefited airlines who were not heavily impacted and led to a flurry of re-bookings from affected travelers.

Alaska Air’s shares were up 1.6% in premarket trading.

Major U.S. carriers have also experienced strong demand throughout the summer travel season that has helped them boost revenues.

Last week, peer JetBlue raised its third-quarter revenue forecast, citing a benefit from outage-related re-bookings.

Alaska Air now expects its current-quarter profit per share to be in the range of $2.15 to $2.25, compared with the airline’s previous forecast of $1.40 to $1.60.

The airline also forecast lower fuel costs for the quarter through September owing to moderating prices of jet fuel.