A Case of the JetBlues?: Fool by Numbers

Earlier Tuesday, Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick JetBlue Airlines (Nasdaq: JBLU) released earnings for the second quarter ended June 30.

• While higher salaries and increased fuel expenses didn't prevent margins from rising, new CEO Dave Barger offered a warning that the soft operating environment will make it tough for JetBlue to continue its current performance.
• Management is taking action by deferring deliveries of 16 Embraer (NYSE: ERJ) 190 jets to 2015 from 2013, which, in turn, should slow capacity growth.
• Heavy summer traffic created extra congestion, causing JetBlue's on-time performance to slip to 69% from 77.9%.
• Will that be enough? The 759 amateur and professional stock pickers following JetBlue in our Motley Fool CAPS investor-intelligence database don't seem to think so. They give the stock just two out of five stars.

(Figures in millions, except per-share data)

Income Statement Highlights

	Q2 2007	Q2 2006	Change
Sales	$730	$612	19.3%
Net Profit	$21	$14	50.0%
EPS	$0.11	$0.08	37.5%
Diluted Shares	198.6	180.8	9.8%

Get back to basics with a look at the income statement.

Margin Checkup

	Q2 2007	Q2 2006	Change*
Gross Margin	40.96%	40.69%	0.27
Operating Margin	10.00%	7.68%	2.32
Net Margin	2.88%	2.29%	0.59

*Expressed in percentage points

Margins are the earnings engine.

Balance Sheet Highlights

Assets	Q2 2007	Q2 2006	Change
Cash + ST Invest.	$772	$468	65.0%

Liabilities	Q2 2007	Q2 2006	Change
Long-Term Debt	$3,005	$2,287	31.4%

The balance sheet reflects the company's health.

Cash Flow Highlights

(No cash flow statement provided. Whatever.)

Free cash flow is a Fool's best friend.

Other Operating Metrics

	Q2 2007	Q2 2006	Change
ASM (in Millions)	8,066	7,202	12.0
RASM (in Cents)	9.05	8.48	6.6
CASM (in Cents)	8.14	7.83	3.9
Load Factor	83.5%	82.2%	1.3*

*Expressed in percentage points

Find out more about airline operating metrics.

Related Foolishness:

• See what your peers had to say before the call.
• Last quarter brought no jeers for JetBlue.
• Check the numbers to find out why.

JetBlue and Embraer are both Stock Advisor selections. Take a 30-day free trial to the service to see all the stocks that are helping David and Tom Gardner beat the market by more than 36 percentage points.

Fool by Numbers is designed to give you the raw earnings information in a timely fashion, putting all the numbers you need in one easy-to-read place. But at The Motley Fool, we believe numbers tell only part of the story, so check Fool.com for more of our in-depth discussion of what the numbers mean.

Fool contributor Tim Beyers once took the Denver-to-New York red eye via JetBlue. He'd prefer to avoid that in the future. Tim didn't own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article at the time of publication. Find Tim's portfolio here and his latest blog commentary here. The Motley Fool's disclosure policy always adds up.