Shouldn't a publication about an interesting industry be, well, interesting?
Things could hardly be more different for two airlines in the same country. In one corner of the ring, Virgin Australia is bloodied and battered. In the other, Qantas has never looked stronger. Last week, as pilots at Virgin’s Tigerair unit threatened a work slowdown before coming to terms with the airline (see page seven), […]
Revenues for U.S. carriers remained terrifically healthy in the first quarter, and everybody made money. But rising labor and fuel costs generally shrunk year-over-year profit margins. United, which continues to trail Delta and American in profitability, did a pretty good job of preserving its margin. Profits slid a bit more at American, but it was […]
There were two dominant themes in the U.S. airline business during the opening quarter of 2018: 1) Demand was red hot, and 2) Fuel prices were way up. Unfortunately, trend two was stronger than trend one, which meant all of the country’s mainline airlines except one saw their operating profit margins decline y/y despite this […]
It’s a good time to be a Japanese airline. The country’s two dominant carriers, All Nippon and Japan Airlines, both earned solid if not spectacular profits last year, fueled by strong demand. Both, meanwhile, are becoming strategically bolder, in a market that’s becoming strategically more important to many foreign airlines. It’s also becoming transformed by […]
For a second straight year, Delta’s operating profit margin has fallen year-over-year in the first quarter. The reason for the decline, once again, is rising costs. The good news: Rising revenues—from nearly every corner of Delta’s network—propelled the airline to a solid 8% operating profit margin. One of the rising costs is, of course, fuel. […]
