Issues

Uh oh. Looks like the party is winding down. Are the good times over for Singapore Airlines? Last week, it unveiled a lackluster 6% operating margin for the January-to-March quarter. It was roughly half the figure it earned at the same time last year, suggesting that indeed, the balloons might be popping and the dance music fading. In this week's feature story, we assess the prospects for one of Asia’s most esteemed carriers.

Allegiant earned a +9% operating margin in Q1 2025. That seems downright triumphant compared to Southwest’s figure of -2%, Frontier’s -5%, or JetBlue’s -8%, but context is key. In 2019, Allegiant’s operating margin in the first quarter was 20%. In other words, it’s performing 11 points worse today, a drop repeated at most of its LCC peers. In this week's feature story, we ask what's going on.

Heavy first quarter losses. A tariff war that threatens global commerce. Signs of softening in the all-important transatlantic market. Surely the Lufthansa Group must be worried? On the contrary, despite the rather nasty $932m Q1 net loss it reported last week, bosses at the European aviation powerhouse struck a decidedly upbeat tone. In this week's feature story, we ask if this optimism is justified.

Q1 earnings season started off pleasantly enough: Delta showed nice profits. United showed nice profits. Last week, by contrast, American, Southwest, and Alaska all revealed Q1 losses. As you’ll read below, the news wasn’t all bad. Premium demand, for example, seems still immune from the brewing economic storm. Fuel prices, meanwhile, are exactly where airlines want them to be: In the basement.

Brand loyal. Brand loyal. Brand loyal. Say that 31 times. Then again? You don’t need to. United already did. No kidding. In its Q1 earnings call last week, United repeated the phrase over and over, keen to underscore one of its chief arguments: That it is winning with travelers who care about more than just price. In this week's feature story, we crunch through the commentary from Kirby and Co.

The whole world was watching. On Wednesday, Delta became the first major U.S. travel company to report first quarter earnings. What would it say about the crisis in confidence unfolding throughout the U.S. economy? How much worse have things gotten in the past month, since Delta first warned about deteriorating demand trends?

Alright, so here we go again. Something’s gone awry in the world, and airlines are among the first to feel it. Following last week’s U.S. plan to essentially dismantle the global trading system, uncertainty has reached a fever-pitch. In this week's feature story we deep-dive into one of the thorniest battles in this emerging economic conflict, and ask how (or perhaps, if) Canada's airlines can come out fighting.

Is there ever a good time to start a new airline? Certainly not during a pandemic. Recurrent airline founder David Neeleman launched Breeze Airways in May 2021, a month in which U.S. airports handled just 50 million passengers. Last May, for perspective, they handled 80 million. In this week's feature story we examine the opportunities and the stubborn challenges of this plucky outlier that doesn't mind flying against the wind.

What’s Turkey’s largest airline? Of course, it’s Turkish Airlines. But don’t overlook another Turkish carrier that’s growing and profiting at least as impressively...

A longterm plan to rightsize the federal government and reindustrialize the U.S.? Or economic suicide? To large swathes of corporate America right now, it feels like the latter. Tariff uncertainty and mass layoffs are rattling consumer and business confidence while erasing trillions in value from stock markets. Are airlines affected? As America’s largest carriers made clear last week, the answer is an emphatic yes.