The Latest on U.S. Airlines

Two legends of the airline business — Singapore Airlines and Emirates — are both thriving in the post-pandemic aftermath. Though many corporate travelers are still missing, there’s more than enough leisure demand to go around, filling up both economy and premium cabins alike. Costs are up from the pre-Covid days. But fuel costs are still down from last year’s highs. Capacity in many international markets is down as well. And revenues are up sharply. It’s a good time to be a premium longhaul airline.

There’s never a bad time to be Ryanair. It once again earned stratospherically high profits this summer, never mind its lack of longhaul and premium exposure. As if it didn’t have enough advantages, it’s now benefiting as rivals ground Airbus planes because of their geared turbofan (GTF) woes.

Case in point: Wizz Air, which was a rare European airline that posted lower profit margins this summer than in 2019. Along with having to ground many planes, Wizz surely felt the impact of oversaturated Middle Eastern Gulf markets, a situation Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways described in detail during its earnings call. Wizz now faces lost business in Tel Aviv, its seventh largest market by ASKs last quarter, according to Cirium Diio.

Tel Aviv was a top ten market (by seats) for Turkey’s Pegasus as well last quarter, one in which the airline earned characteristically strong profits. But not as strong as usual. Demand has clearly cooled for Pegasus, albeit from red-hot levels. Across the world in Brazil, Gol delivered both good and bad news: an impressive operating profit but a heavy net loss. The LCC, alas, still has a big debt burden to navigate.

That’s less true for Thai Airways these days, thanks to a bankruptcy cleansing. It’s quietly been earning some of the industry’s best margins since the end of the Covid era. Neighbor Philippine Airlines reported another strong profit too. In the U.S., Sun Country avoided the losses of its ultra-low-cost peers (and of JetBlue, whose Spirit merger trial continues). Also in the U.S., American is marching its planes away from Austin, retreating from an all-star economy that’s simply seen too much new airline capacity. In Taiwan, EVA Air refrained from ordering 777Xs and opted for A350-1000s instead — that’s a big blow to Boeing. In the Gulf, preparations are underway for this week’s Dubai Airshow. And everywhere around the globe, Pratt & Whitney GTF customers are scrambling to adjust their networks.