Issue Summary

Most U.S. airlines have now reported their first quarter results and frankly, they’re not pretty. Frontier and Allegiant have yet to announce. But among the country’s other nine publicly-traded non-regional carriers, only three earned an operating profit. One was the niche player Sun Country, whose margins were downright spectacular. Another was Delta, which paid significantly less for fuel than everyone else thanks to its refinery. The third was American, a more surprising success story given its underwhelming track record in recent years — both Delta and American posted 4 percent operating margins. Is this a sign that American is on…