Hawaiian Air, jetBlue, United recover as Wall Street stops slide, carriers report strong traffic
America's airlines, as expected, are mostly reporting improved traffic figures for the month of Jun-2010 and, with load factors climbing, most are also reporting higher revenue per ASM. The Dow Jones Index moved up a modest 0.6% on Friday 9-Jun-2010, but this was welcome respite after a series of downward movements, as most stocks hovered around static. As always, airline stocks exaggerated the wider market's movement.
See related report: Double-digit PRASM performance for United, Southwest, US Airways & Continental; outlook improving)
Hawaiian Airlines was the strongest mover of the US airlines, gaining 6.3% on news of a 3.4% rise in passenger numbers for Jun-2010. A very healthy load factor of 85.9% (up 0.9ppt) accompanied the growth. This was slightly lower than May-2010's level of 86.3%, but keeps Hawaiian at the top of the US airline list for load factor efficiency.
JetBlue (+4.9%) stocks also performed well, on news of an 11% rise in traffic over Jun-2009, with only a 5.8% increase in capacity. This left a strong load factor of 84.2% for the month.
The market liked United Airlines' leap in average prices, with a 12.2% improvement in RASM for Jun-2010 year on year. United's stock rose 4.1%.
In Canada, WestJet stocks bounced up 6.7%, after the carrier's announcement on Wednesday of a 19% year on year improvement in Jun-2010 passenger numbers was followed by stronger Canadian growth outlook on Friday. This did not however help Air Canada, whose stock remained steady.
The warm winds also spread to Latin America, and TAM (+3.8%) and GOL (3.4%) were each well into positive territory.
North & South America selected airlines daily share price movements (% change): 09-Jul-2010
Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & Yahoo! Finance