Displaying items by tag: airlines

(Atlanta)

Many Airlines saw increases in stock prices on Monday as increases in bookings for spring and summer leisure trips…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site

(New York)

Where do you stand on airlines? Your opinion is worth about as much as the whole market’s—nobody is quite sure what to make of the future of air travel right now. Airlines had seen rising passenger numbers, but that has been tapering off as COVID cases have been rising again. Delta announced dreadful earnings yesterday, with revenue down 88% and net losses worth $4.33 per share. Thy also announced they were cutting their flight additions for August in half because of the rise in cases. The earnings come alongside a bleak announcement from United, which said “it's increasingly likely that travel demand will not return to normal until there is a widely available treatment or vaccine."

FINSUM: Have airline stocks come back too far? It looks there is likely to be at last another ugly 18 months as we await a vaccine.

(Atlanta)

Airlines had a pretty good run headed into last week’s downturns. Other travel stocks did too. However, the markets really seem to have gotten ahead of themselves, because the big rallies appear to forget some fundamental changes that might be taking place under the COVID lockdown. While a knee-jerk rise in share prices alongside the lifting of lockdown orders might be logical on the surface, it ignores the fact that a great deal of domestic US travel is for business, and attitudes towards business travel have changed remarkably since March. Many companies have found remote work even more productive than office work, and no longer see the need for travel. Also, it is easier to cut travel budgets by 50% than it is to lay off more people.

FINSUM: We think there is going to be serious changes to the business travel paradigm that prevailed pre-COVID. It has now been demonstrated that similar levels of sales can be achieved by videoconference, and when you count the cost and time of travel, it is clear that companies are going to permanently cut budgets.

(Atlanta)

The market is making a very strong bet that American Airlines—one of the largest carriers in the US—is going to fail. Bloomberg data shows that based on credit default swap pricing, investors think there is nearly a 100% chance of the Texas-based carrier defaulting in the next five years. There is nothing particularly unique about American Airlines’ exposure to the COVID crisis, except that it has a great deal more debt than other carriers, making it much more vulnerable. For its part, American is trying to “right size” its budget and is planning to downsize its operating expenditures by about $12 bn this year.

FINSUM: Cost cuts are great, but if your revenue has fallen 90%+ plus, all the costs cuts in the world aren’t likely to keep up.

(Seattle)

The biggest aircraft maker in the country just put out a dire prediction (although not a surprising one)—that there will be a major airline bankruptcy this year. The airline industry has been wounded as never before, with demand falling more than 90% since this time last year. Most analysts think it will take until the end of year for demand to even rise to 50% of the year prior. Credit default swaps—a proxy for the odds a company will default—are very high right now. For instance, markets are putting a 54% chance that American Airlines defaults.

FINSUM: This is an odd comment from a company that is talking about its biggest clients. It speaks volumes.