Share prices of U.S. airlines, including American Airlines,
the world's biggest carrier, were off to their worst start of the year
since 2011 on Tuesday. The slump is a result of analyst concerns that
airlines are offering too many seats, reported Bloomberg News.
The shares of 10 out of 11 U.S. air carriers, including No.
2 and 3 Delta and United, fell on Tuesday, and had the slowest period
to open the year since an 8.7 percent drop in 2011. The industry has had
rallies of as high as 35 percent in the first quarter of the previous
three years.
Analysts Julie Yates of Credit Suisse Group AG and Darryl
Genovesi of UBS AG expect the downturn to continue, noting that revenue
from each seat flown one mile fell in the first quarter of 2015 and will
probably continue to fall.
"It's really easy for
investors to extrapolate a little bit of negative through the whole
year. Investors are hoping for a little capacity discipline and maybe
some cutback in flight schedules. Things like that help shore up the
revenue environment," Andrew Meister, an analyst with Thrivent
Financials for Lutherans, told Bloomberg.
Airlines are already refraining from adding flights to
increase passenger capacity. In fact, the number of commercial flights
in the U.S. has fallen by 15 percent since
2005. Instead, airlines are packing more seats into existing planes.
Some are also trading smaller aircraft for larger ones, which burn less
fuel per seat but also offer more seats, decreasing the occupancy
factor.
As the trend continues, investors fear a surplus of airline
seats requiring airlines to cut prices in order to fill planes. “It’s a
harbinger of things to come,” said Meister.
According to Bloomberg, five of the six largest U.S.
airlines increased seat capacity in the beginning of 2015; American
Airlines was the only one that did not.
Shares Of US Airlines Down As They Face A Glut Of Empty Seats
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