Delta Air Lines Inc. has announced their quarterly profit and the figure was better than expected. The company also forecasted their 2nd quarter passenger unit revenue to grow by one to three percent. Delta Air Lines shares surged 1.9% to $46.13 in early trading following the announcement.

Last month, Delta reduced its operating margin forecast for the 1st quarter because of rising fuel and labor costs.

According to Zacks Investment Research, Wall Street was expecting earnings per share to be 73 cents per share. However, Delta Air reported adjusted earnings per share to be 77 cents.

Compared to last year’s first quarter, Delta’s net income dropped by 36.3% to $603 million. Total operating revenue also fell by 1.1% to $9.15 billion. Analysts forecasted it to be $9.18 billion.

Glen Hauenstein, Delta President, said, “We will keep our full-year capacity growth capped at 1 percent to support this unit revenue momentum and the company’s return to margin expansion.”

The company noted that last month was the first month since November 2015 that they had positive passenger unit revenue. Delta expects this figure to remain positive for the rest of 2017. Last year, unit revenues dropped throughout the industry because of lower average fares and higher capacity.

Helane Becker, Cowen & Co. analyst, said, “Investors may view the company’s second quarter passenger unit revenue guidance as ‘aggressive’ given recent guidance missteps, but the guidance was still much better than expectations especially when considered the storm impact.”

Earlier this month, Delta had to cancel around 4,000 flights because of the hazardous weather in Atlanta. Ed Bastian, Chief Executive Officer, said, “We hold ourselves to a high standard, and we apologize to all our customers who were impacted by last week’s events.”

Ned Walker, Delta spokesman, said that Gil West who is Delta’s chief operating officer would perform “a complete deep dive across the organization to find out lessons learned from all the different divisions.”

The impact of it would be that they have to reduce their 2nd quarter pre-tax income by $125 million. Their forecast for their 2nd quarter operating margin is within a range of 17 to 19 percent.

According to Delta’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, the first quarter of the year would likely be the quarter that applies the most pressure on profit margins because of rising fuel costs. Jacobson said in a statement, “With an improving revenue profile and further improvement as our cost growth moderates in the second half, we are on track to expand margins for the balance of the year.”

Delta President Glen Hauenstein, Delta is expecting a fast recovery for its pricey last minute tickets that business travelers usually avail of. He described those fares are now “moving in the right direction.”

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Delta is the most generous airline when it comes to compensating passengers for lack of seats in 2016. Among the airlines, it also had the highest rate of overbooked spots.

Delta Airlines is based in Georgia, Atlanta.

San Diego-based Mad Catz Interactive has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. The reasons cited for this liquidation was that it could not raise additional capital or get a buyer to save it.

The difference between a Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy is that in Chapter 7, there is no intention to reorganize. The objective is liquidation, and thus directors and officers will vacate the company.

For almost three decades, Mad Catz was the leader in the manufacture of video game peripherals including headsets, battery packs, memory pacts, controllers and fight sticks for PC, consoles, and handhelds. The brands of Mad Catz include Mad Catz and Tritton. Tritton brand will also shut down and liquidate its assets to pay off debts to creditors.

Mad Catz is considering several options which include sale of assets, taking on more debt and even sale of the whole company. Liquidation is also an option for its foreign subsidiaries. Proceeds from the sales of assets of Mad Catz will be used to repay creditors.

The board of directors shut down the company because it failed to find a satisfactory solution to its cash liquidity problems. Also, the board and executive officers have resigned as of March 30.

Consulting giant, PricewaterhouseCoopers is now the overseeing entity for Mad Catz and will see through the liquidation of the company.

Mad Catz started in 1989, and its headquarters is in Mira Mesa despite being incorporated in Canada.

Chief Executive Karen McGinnis said in a press release, “Regrettably and notwithstanding that for a significant amount of time the Company has been actively pursuing its strategic alternatives, including various near-term financing alternatives such as bank-financing and equity infusions, as well as potential sales of certain assets of the Company or a sale of the Company in its entirety, the Company has been unable to find a satisfactory solution to its cash liquidity problems.”

In February 2016, Mad Catz retrenched 37% of its workforce. All of Mad Catz products from 2016 were reworked versions of existing Mad Catz products.

At the beginning of this year, the New York Stock Exchange gave Mad Catz a listing deficiency notice as its stock was trading very low. It reached a low price of below $0.04.

Last September, Mad Catz sold to Logitech its Saitek brand of flight and space simulation controllers. In return, it received $11 million in cash, of which $2 million was in escrow to cover any potential claims to the transaction.

In 2015, Mad Catz had a successful year because of its accessories for the Rock Band 4 video game. Things went downhill since then. Last year, sales dropped to $44.7 million and posted a $4 million loss.

Their most successful line of products was arcade sticks made for fighting games like street fighter.
In the past, it made a poor investment in game developer Harmonix which was attempting to revive its Rock Bandlicense. Mad Catz was the producer of its plastic instruments and co-publisher.