Displaying items by tag: southwest

(Atlanta)

If you have any hope for a quick airline recovery post-coronavirus, take that idea, crumple it into a little ball and throw it away. The reality of air travel’s recovery is looking bleaker by the week. On the one hand, additional safety measures are going to be necessity for a long time—and they will be costly. Extra screening, spacing out passengers etc all have significant costs. Additionally, many airlines will have to forego middle seating to create adequate distance between passengers, cutting down on capacity. All of this will come as demand for air travel remains low in the short-term and secularly weaker in the long-term. For instance, business travel for meetings, conferences etc all looks likely to be very slow to recover because companies don’t want to put their workers in harm’s way. Videoconferencing has also proven very effective.

FINSUM: There is likely to be a big clearing out of weaker airlines and several years of losses/less profit for larger ones.

(Atlanta)

We can finally put a number on it. Anecdotal evidence has shown that airlines and other travel companies are getting hammered. Now analysts have an estimate of just how much of a hit airlines are going to take. The answer is more than $100 bn of lost business because of coronavirus. The specific figure is $113 bn, a 4x increase in forecasted lost revenue from just two weeks ago. Big airlines like Delta, United, and Southwest have been cutting routes and flights left and right.

FINSUM: These stocks have gotten pummeled because of Coronavirus. When is the right time to buy in?