Hawaiian Air CEO: Strengthening Dollar Has Clearly Had An Impact

Shares of Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. HA plunged heavily on Friday on back of worse than expected fourth-quarter earnings and lowering of first-quarter guidance. Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian Air president and CEO, was on CNBC post the declaration of results to talk about how lower oil prices and strength in dollar is affecting the company’s business.

“Well, I think most people who have been buying oil over the course of the last couple of years were by surprise by how quickly the oil prices dropped,” Dunkerley said. “But frankly I don’t think our hedged positions have much to do with the stock performance today. We don’t hedge to speculate in the market, we hedge to reduce volatility in our financial results and that philosophy and that program is going to continue just as we are.”

He continued, “I think, where the market was reacting to is that we, to two things yesterday, we announced a good 2014 and we spoke with a great deal of confidence about 2015 and we at the same time acknowledged some revenue weakness in the first-quarter and  that seems to be what caught the imagination of the market today.”

What’s Causing That Revenue Weakness In The First-Quarter?

“I think there are a number of things in the first-quarter, we have got the affect of a strong US dollar,” Dunkerley said. “We fly throughout Asia, most of the people sitting on airplanes are from Asia, buy their tickets in overseas currencies and they are translating into fewer dollars than this time last year. So, that clearly has an impact…at the same time between North America and Hawaii, capacity is up about 10p year-over-year and that is in our airline industry quite a big number.”