Delta posts $534 million quarterly loss, warns 'the second quarter will be worse'

Delta just reported its first quarterly loss in several years amid the coronavirus pandemic, but its CEO is warning the worst is yet to come.

The airline on Wednesday reported a net loss of $534 million in the first quarter of 2020, its first quarterly loss in more than five years, CNN reports. Revenue was down 18 percent compared to last year, and Delta is expecting revenue for the second quarter to plunge 90 percent, as was previously reported.

"The second quarter will be worse," CEO Ed Bastian said in a memo to employees, per Yahoo. "The decline in travel has reduced our expected revenues for the period by $11 billion, or 90 percent, compared to a year ago."

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Amid stay-at-home orders during the pandemic, passenger volumes have fallen 95 percent in the United States, The Wall Street Journal reports. In fact, Airlines for America estimates that over the past week, U.S. flights have averaged just 12 passengers, per The Associated Press. Delta, which said it was burning through $100 million in cash a day by the end of March, received $5.4 billion from Congress' recent stimulus package, The New York Times reports.

"These are truly unprecedented times for all of us," Bastian also said.

Delta's report had been highly anticipated, as it was the first airline to report its first quarter results amid the pandemic that's taken a heavy toll on the industry, CNN noted. For airlines, "the general assumption is that the rest of the year will not look as grim as the second quarter," Standard and Poor's analyst Philip Baggaley previously told CNN, "but it will be a slow recovery."