Hello earthlings. This week in PlaneBusiness Banter we are, of course, talking fuel prices. Jet fuel prices to be exact. New York Harbor Jet closed today at $3.22/gallon. Have you filled up your Boeing 737-800 lately? Yes, well, if you have — you can understand why the airline industry is having its own equivalent of an anxiety attack.
Today American Airlines became the second major US carrier to announce a reduction in its capacity forecast for the year. (JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker has to be sooo happy with this news — after the hard time he gave the airline about their capacity plans in the airline’s fourth quarter earnings call.) Delta already reduced its numbers in February.
Who will be next?
We also have our in-depth earnings call review this week for both SkyWest and Republic Holdings — our last two US airline industry earnings calls for the fourth quarter.
Calls for both airlines were quite interesting, but I have to say, I did not realize that ….well, I’ll keep what I was surprised about in the SkyWest call a surprise. You’ll just have to read.
We also talk about the fourth quarter numbers that a number of Asian carriers posted last week including Air Asia, Malaysia, and Tiger Airways.
We also take a look at US industry revenues for the fourth quarter this week. If you want a graphical look at how revenues in this industry are consolidating — your search has ended with this week’s issue.
Also — do you know the difference between a “weighted average” and normal average? If you frequently look at summaries about various industry metrics, it might be a good idea if you knew what the difference was. There — that’s our small effort at financial education for the week.
Airline stocks? Can we change the subject please? With crude oil prices up more than 13% on the week and jet fuel up 8% — it was a horrible week for the sector. Shares of Air Canada posted the biggest loss of the double-digit loser group.
As always, all this and more — in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.
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