INVESTOR RELATIONS UPDATE April 6, 2007 General Comments ? Q1 2007 Events — During the first quarter, US Airways and US Airways Express faced major operational challenges resulting from 2 major snow storms that impacted our Philadelphia hub and the migration to a single reservations system. As a result of these challenges, Revenue, RASM, and CASM were all negatively impacted. ? Accounting Allocation Changes — Express CASM has been revised upward by 3% per quarter due to changes in accounting allocations within Express and between Mainline and Express. These changes allocate fuel transportation expenses, that were previously reported in the Express fuel expense line item, to other Express operating expenses, and also allocate certain operating expenses, previously booked to Mainline, to the Express carriers (i.e. workers compensation, commissions, reservations costs, etc.). These allocations have no impact on overall US Airways Group profitability as they are simply transfers between Mainline and Express. Absent these changes or allocations, Mainline expense estimates would have been 1% higher each quarter. ? Profit Sharing / CASM — Profit sharing equals 10% of pre-tax earnings excluding transition expenses and special items up to a 10% pre-tax margin and 15% above the 10% margin. Profit sharing is included in the CASM guidance given below. ? Cargo / Other Revenue — Cargo / Other Revenue includes: cargo revenue, ticket change fees, excess/overweight baggage fees, contract services, simulator rental, airport clubs, Materials Service Corporation (MSC), and inflight service revenues. ? Fuel — US Airways uses costless collars on Heating Oil Futures as a fuel-hedging vehicle. For Q107, the Company has 56% of its mainline fuel hedged, and expects to pay between $1.98 and $2.03 per gallon of jet fuel (including taxes and hedges). The collar range of the hedges in place is between $1.88 and $2.08 per gallon of heating oil, or between $64.66 and $73.06 per barrel of crude oil. Forecasted volume, fuel prices, hedge percentages, and equivalent price per barrel of crude oil are provided in the table below. ? Taxes / NOLs — As of December 31, 2006, US Airways and America West had a total of approximately $980 million of net operating loss carryforwards (NOL) to reduce future taxable income. Of this amount approximately $795 million is available to reduce federal taxable income in the calendar year 2007. The Company’s deferred tax asset, which includes the $795 million of NOL discussed above, has been subject to a valuation allowance. As of December 31, 2006, that valuation allowance was approximately $260 million. For the full year 2006, US Airways recognized $85 million of non cash income tax expense, as the Company utilized NOL that was generated by US Airways prior to the merger. In accordance with SFAS No. 109, as this was acquired NOL, the decrease in the valuation allowance associated with this NOL reduced goodwill instead of the provision for income taxes. As of December 31, 2006, the remaining valuation allowance associated with acquired NOL was approximately $30 million. The Company was subject to Alternative Minimum Tax liability (“AMT”) in 2006. In most cases the recognition of AMT does not result in tax expense. However, since the Company’s NOL was subject to a full valuation allowance, any liability for AMT is recorded as tax expense. The Company recorded AMT tax expense of $10 million for the full year 2006. The Company also recorded $2 million of state income tax related to certain states where NOL was limited or not available to be used. The Company again expects to use NOL to reduce taxable income in 2007. In Q107 and Q207, the Company expects the reversal of AWA’s remaining valuation allowance, which was established through the recognition of tax expense, will be recognized as a reduction of tax expense. In Q307 and Q407 the Company expects to recognize non-cash tax expense associated with the use of NOL, as the balance of valuation allowance shouldbe reduced to zero. The Company also expects to be subject to AMT liability and to record and pay certain state income tax in 2007. Current estimates are less than $5 million per quarter. ? Share Count — At the end of Q406, the Company had 89.9 million basic, and 91.9 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding. Both basic and diluted shares guidance is provided in the table below. ? Cash — At the end of 2006, the Company had approximately $3.0 billion in total cash, of which $2.4 billion was unrestricted. Please refer to the footnotes and the forward looking statementspage of this document for additional information |