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Delta executives say they expect premium revenue from first class and other higher-priced cabins to overtake the coach cabin next year.
In the last quarter, Delta said ticket revenue from its premium cabin rose 9% from last year to nearly $5.8 billion.
Delta and other airlines have become more reliant on more upmarket seats.

A view from the Delta Sky Club at Los Angeles International Airport, Sept. 2, 2022.
AaronP | Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images

Delta Air Lines customers are getting used to first class.
Revenue from the pricier, roomier seats toward the front of the plane could eclipse sales from standard coach seats for at least a quarter or two next year, Delta executives said Thursday.

In the last quarter, Delta said ticket revenue from its premium cabin rose 9% from last year to nearly $5.8 billion, while main-cabin ticket revenue fell 4% from a year earlier to just over $6 billion.
CEO Ed Bastian said he’s seen no sign of premium-travel demand slowing down, a trend that helped drive the carrier’s upbeat forecast, released Thursday, for the rest of 2025 and next year.

Airlines from Delta to Frontier have been working to court travelers willing to pay more for seats on board.
During an investor day last year, Delta said that just 43% of its 2024 revenue was coming from main cabin tickets, down from a 60% share from in 2010. Meanwhile, Delta said that close to 60% of revenue last year was generated by premium seats and its lucrative loyalty program.
Delta, the most profitable U.S. airline, has benefited from its customers shelling out more for premium seats. Carriers have raced to add more of those seats to their fleets, some of them so elaborate — with lie-flat beds, ottomans and big entertainment screens — that they have delayed deliveries of new planes as regulators evaluate their design.

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Macao is transforming itself with fresh entertainment, waterparks, spas, fine dining and sports.
This week Las Vegas Sands is hosting two NBA games in Macao, a return for the basketball league after a six-year absence from China.
The government of Macao is intent on diversifying its economy and moving beyond its reputation as the gambling capital of the world.

MACAO — If you blindfolded an American tourist and plopped them on the Cotai Strip in Macao, they might take one look at the Venetian hotel and the replica Eiffel Tower and assume they were in Las Vegas.
Like Las Vegas, Macao — a special administrative region of China — is transforming itself with fresh entertainment, waterparks, spas, fine dining and sports.

This week Las Vegas Sands is hosting two NBA games in Macao, a return for the basketball league after a six-year absence from China. The company’s president and chief operating officer, Patrick Dumont, owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and was pivotal in engineering the league’s return.
“I think it’s great for Macao, because it highlights really how great an entertainment city Macao truly is,” Dumont told CNBC in an interview. He highlighted the tens of billions of dollars invested to create a world-class destination for hospitality.
“We’ve been operating here for 21 years, and we’ve invested $17 billion, so the amount of entertainment capacity here is really tremendous,” Dumont said. “For us, the NBA just highlights that.”

The NBA games — between the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns, on Friday and Sunday — will be played at the Venetian Arena in Macao. Fans packed the same arena last month for an immersive K-pop concert by the group Twice.
Big-name events draw the biggest spenders at the gaming tables, according to analysts at Citigroup, which last month raised its projection for 2025 gross gaming revenue in Macao to $33.3 billion. Those projections represent growth of 10% year over year, an acceleration in gaming revenue gains.

For comparison, the state of Nevada booked a record $15.6 billion in gaming revenue in 2024, according to the American Gaming Association, citing Nevada Gaming Control Board.
But the government of Macao is intent on diversifying its economy and moving beyond its reputation as the gambling capital of the world.
When the six primary concessionaires, the companies that run licensed casino resorts in Macao, applied in 2022 to have those concessions renewed, the government extracted from them a commitment to invest nearly $15 billion over 10 years, with about 90% dedicated to non-gaming amenities.
Wynn Resorts CEO Craig Billings said in an email to CNBC that the company’s concession-related investments are “focused on entertainment and, as we have seen in many markets including Macau, entertainment is a clear driver of visitation.  And that visitation is from both gaming customers and non-gaming customers.”

View of Macao, Macao.
Contessa Brewer | CNBC

At Wynn Palace in Cotai, customers might snap selfies in front of an incredible collection of F1 race cars, ride a gondola over a Bellagio-esque fountain show, or dine at SW Steakhouse while catching a different theatrical show every 30 minutes. Wynn’s investment in food-court style dining belies the renowned cuisine represented from across China and around the world.
Gaming executives across multiple companies say the demographics of visitors have changed since borders reopened after the pandemic. Younger gamblers, high-rollers and their spouses or children are enjoying increasingly inventive and diverse amusements.

New amenities

MGM Macau’s Tria spa, the result of a $7 million investment, surprises guests with a room devoted to real snowfall. And its immersive experience pool puts the guest in the middle of a virtual ocean as a violent thunderstorm approaches, with massive rain shower heads overhead sending water cascading down.
MGM China President Kenneth Feng proudly showed off top-tier suites built to reward the best and most valuable players. He told CNBC his entire team is committed to offering modern uplifting design and superb service for an evolving Chinese visitor.
“These people are young and sophisticated, and many of them come to Macao so often,” Feng said. “We need to refresh our offerings so they are excited to come to Macao and happy to visit our properties.”
This week, families with children (and grandparents and “helpers” as the nannies are often called here) skipped through Melco’s Studio City, climbing atop Toy Story characters, racing toward the indoor/outdoor waterpark, and boarding the only figure-8 Ferris wheel in the world.
At Melco’s sister resort down the strip, City of Dreams, patrons young and old filled the theater for a destination show, “House of Dancing Water.”

View of Macao.
Contessa Brewer | CNBC

At every resort, the restaurants, shops, pools and clubs connect with corridors outside casino floors that are carefully cloistered behind screens to block the gaming tables and slot machines from view.

Getting back to gambling revenue

Visitation increased nearly 20% in the first half of 2025 to 19.2 million people, according to official government statistics. Golden Week alone, an eight-day holiday period ending October 8, was expected to bring in an estimated 1.2 million visitors.
And despite the strides in general entertainment, more visitors to Macao still means more gambling.
A JPMorgan analyst note published earlier this week said this year’s Golden Week was likely to be Macao’s best in five years, with the casinos projected to bring in $686 million in gaming revenue in just the first five days of the holiday.
CNBC was not allowed to photograph or record the casino floor, as its prohibited by law in Macao. The special administrative region takes great pains to avoid provoking the Chinese government, which staunchly opposes any promotion of gambling on the mainland.

View of Macao.
Contessa Brewer | CNBC

But it is gambling that fuels the profits and the tax revenue. Macao’s government collected $5.6 billion in gaming taxes in the first half of 2025, about 1% growth over 2024. The data from the first half of 2025 shows non-gaming spending per capita dropped by nearly 13%.
Las Vegas, too, has invested billions of dollars in entertainment, fine dining, spas, shopping and sports. Roughly two-thirds of revenue now comes from non-gaming sources, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Of course, that’s revenue; not profits. All those arenas, spas, pools and fancy theaters come with major construction and maintenance costs. And it takes a lot of high-priced concert tickets to pay off the investment.
Alan Woinski, publisher of The Gaming Industry Daily Report, blamed the slump in Las Vegas on declining tourist demand.
“It is pretty easy to understand that leisure is where the LV Strip is seeing business plummet. Could we get back the billions wasted on non-gaming amenities to attract the non-gambling leisure customer?” Woinski wrote on Wednesday.
Woinski says Macao is a different story: Here, the special events are driving the gambling.
“This month will be a good test because usually after a Golden Week, the rest of the month is weak,” Woinski told CNBC.
He said key metrics to watch are gross gaming revenue and whether the packed special events calendar for the rest of October helps deliver gaming revenue that finally returns to pre-pandemic levels.
One top casino executive, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of retribution, said there was “no way” Macao would ever be majority non-gaming revenue. The amenities, then, may just icing on the Baccarat cake.
— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report. More

Delta topped quarterly profit expectations and forecast a stronger-than-expected finish to 2025.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the carrier expects to grow profit margins in 2026.
Premium travel revenue continued to outshine coach class, though domestic unit revenue grew.

Delta Air Lines Flight Museum in Atlanta, Ga.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC

Delta Air Lines forecast a better-than-expected end to 2025 thanks to rising airfares and resilient luxury travel demand.
The airline on Thursday projected adjusted earnings of between $1.60 and $1.90 a share for the fourth quarter, compared with the $1.65 per share analysts polled by LSEG were expecting. Revenue in the last three months of the year will grow as much as 4%, Delta said, above the 1.7% Wall Street expects.

“Looking to 2026, Delta is well positioned to deliver top-line growth, margin expansion and earnings improvement consistent with our long-term financial framework,” CEO Ed Bastian said in an earnings release.
Here’s how the company performed in the third quarter, compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on consensus estimates from LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.71 adjusted vs. $1.53 expected
Revenue: $15.2 billion adjusted vs. $15.06 billion expected

Delta’s outlook points to improved demand and less of a surplus of flights that pushed domestic fares and revenue down at airlines this year, particularly early in 2025 when consumer confidence was rattled in the early stages of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Starting in July, cash sales picked up,” Bastian said in an interview.
The Atlanta-based carrier is the first of the major airlines to report results this quarter. Its shares were up more than 7% in premarket trading, and United Airlines, American Airlines and others were also up sharply after Delta’s upbeat forecast.

Delta’s third-quarter profit rose 11% to $1.42 billion, or $2.17 a share, up from $1.27 billion, or $1.97 a share, a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, including investment-related adjustments, its profit climbed 15% to $1.12 billion, or $1.71 a share, ahead of analyst estimates.
Adjusted revenue rose 4% year over year.
Premium travel demand continued to outshine the coach cabin. Revenue from the high-end segment, which includes first class and roomier economy seats, increased 9% in the third quarter to nearly $5.8 billion, while main cabin revenue fell 4% to about $6 billion.
Bastian said there were no signs of a consumer pullback for premium products.

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Delta and other carriers have culled unprofitable or less profitable flights such as those during unpopular midweek travel days to help stem an oversupply of seats in the market. That surplus of capacity along with shifting consumer habits and higher costs has made previously slam dunk summer profits more elusive for some U.S. carriers.
Domestic unit revenue rose 2% in the third quarter at the carrier on a 4% increase in capacity, and Delta forecast it would remain positive year over year in the current quarter. Stronger corporate travel demand helped to drive a 5% increase in overall domestic passenger revenue in the third quarter.
Delta said it expects adjusted, full-year earnings per share of $6, at the upper end of the $5.25 to $6.25 it forecast for 2025 in July.
When asked about the federal government shutdown, Bastian told CNBC that the airline hasn’t seen “any impacts at all” to its operation in recent days, but that if it continues for 10 more days or so, that could change. More

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LOOK AROUND the world of artificial intelligence and OpenAI is everywhere. In early September ChatGPT’s creator reportedly struck a deal to buy perhaps $10bn-worth of custom AI chips from Broadcom. A fortnight later the startup revealed that Nvidia, Broadcom’s larger rival, would invest up to $100bn in it over several years while selling it graphics-processing units (GPUs) worth that amount. On October 6th OpenAI announced a deal with AMD, a third chipmaker, of similar size and circularity. This time it is OpenAI that may take a stake in AMD, which would sell it silicon worth an estimated $90bn or so between 2026 and 2030. More

On a recent evening in Bier Reise ’98, a beer hall in Shimbashi, a lively district in Tokyo, Matsuo Kohei poured one of his last glasses of Maruefu. Unlike its sibling, Super Dry, the lager is rarely seen outside Japan. Thanks to a cyber-attack on Asahi, the brewer of both, Maruefu is becoming rare at home, too. Mr Matsuo said he would run out that night. Without a delivery, a drought of Super Dry would follow within days. The attack, confirmed by Asahi on September 29th, brought most of the company’s 30 factories, as well as call centres and shipments, to a halt. More

Military types are familiar with the idea of gradually ratcheting up the intensity of a conflict. Herman Kahn, an American nuclear strategist of the 1960s, identified no fewer than 44 rungs on the escalation ladder. The lower rungs on Kahn’s ladder include things like “Solemn and Formal Declarations”; the topmost is called “Spasm”, which doesn’t sound good at all. More

United is launching new nonstop flights to smaller European cities in a bet adventure-seeking customers will opt to avoid connecting flights.
New destinations include Bari, Italy; Split, Croatia; and Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
The airline is vying with Delta to become the luxury airline of the U.S.

Polignano a Mare in the Region of Puglia. Italy.
Artur Debat | Moment | Getty Images

United Airlines’ summer 2026 international travel plan is out, and smaller European cities are in.
Starting April 30, United plans to fly from its hub at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to Split on the Croatian coast — its second destination in the country. A day later the carrier is launching Newark to Bari in the popular Puglia region of southern Italy on the Adriatic Sea.

May 22 is the scheduled launch of a nonstop from Newark to Santiago de Compostela, in the Galicia region of Spain, the end of the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail.
The additions show United’s latest bet on high-spending travelers looking for trips beyond major European capitals, and the chance to fly to those places nonstop, without connecting in big hubs. The carrier is vying with Delta for big-spending travelers. Most of the new routes are operated with airplanes outfitted with its ever-growing, lie-flat Polaris cabin.
United executives have long touted its vast international network as a driver for customer loyalty and sign-ups for lucrative travel rewards credit cards.
Delta, for its part, has used a similar strategy and last month announced new nonstops to Malta and the Italian region of Sardinia for next summer. 
United’s other additions include a May 21 debut from its Washington Dulles International Airport hub to Reykjavik, Iceland, and a daily, year-round nonstop from Newark to Seoul, South Korea, starting next September. It will also start a Newark to Glasgow, Scotland, flight on May 8, on a Boeing 737 Max 8.

Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, said that destinations the carrier announced last year, including Nuuk, Greenland, will remain in the airline’s schedule for 2026.
United is also planning to add a third daily flight to Tel Aviv from Newark starting March 28.

Majestic landscape of Godafoss waterfall flowing with colorful sunset sky and male tourist standing at the cliff on Skjalfandafljot river in summer at Northern Iceland.
Mumemories | Istock | Getty Images More