It's looking like another positive day for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) at this stage of Thursday's session. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 had added an encouraging 0.81% and is back above 7,050 points.
But let's talk about the Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) share price. And, of course, the Qantas dividend.
Qantas shares are soaring today. The airline is currently up a very pleasing 7.93% at $4.90 a share. This lift comes directly after the carrier reported its earnings for the 2022 financial year.
As my Fool colleague Tony dug into this morning, Qantas reported a 53.5% surge in revenue to $9.1 billion. But that wasn't enough to stop Qantas from posting a statutory loss after tax of $860 million, down 49.2% from last year. Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) were also down 31.5% to $281 million.
But what about Qantas' dividend?
Qantas used to be a fairly solid ASX dividend-paying share. But the airline operator hasn't paid a dividend in the post-pandemic era. Its last dividend was doled out way back in September 2019.
Where is the Qantas dividend at?
Unfortunately for income investors, the airline's dividend situation won't be changing this year. Qantas declared no final dividend for FY2022 this morning. It is difficult for a company to justify a dividend when it is losing money on the bottom line, after all.
But that's not to say Qantas investors won't be enjoying any form of capital return going forward. Because, although Qantas' dividend drought continues, the airline did announce an on-market share buyback program, worth up to $400 million.
Share buybacks do not put cash in the hands of investors as a dividend does. However, they do support shareholders by reducing the overall share count. This tends to boost the share price, given that under the laws of supply and demand, less supply leads to a rise in price.
There are also fewer shares to split the company's earnings between, leading to a potential boost in earnings per share (EPS) for existing investors.
So it's not like there is nothing in this earnings report for investors to get excited about. This $400 million share buyback program might well be why the Qantas share price is soaring so high this Thursday.
At the current Qantas share price, this ASX 200 airline operator has a market capitalisation of $8.56 billion (but sadly still no dividend yield).
