Why Airline Stocks Like United and Delta Soared Today
Airline stocks soared Tuesday, led by United Airlines Holdings (NASDAQ: UAL), up 6.9% as of Tuesday's close, closely trailed by Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE) and JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU). Even the industry's laggards are outpacing the broad market's gains, though, with American Airlines Group (NASDAQ: AAL) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) higher to the tune of 4%. Shares of Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) were in the middle of that range, sporting a 5.9% gain for today's session. Reports of brisk travel demand despite the rapid spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 buoyed the group that has otherwise been struggling of late.
Airline shareholders can thank Barron's, mostly. Citing data published by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, the news venue reports air travel for the past five days has consistently exceeded 2 million passengers per day. That's still only between 81% and 85% of 2019's comparable count, before the coronavirus pandemic crimped demand. Bank of America underscored the idea, commenting in a report posted on Monday that it's also not seeing any measurable adverse impact on air travel despite the new variant. The collective data suggests the air travel industry continues to recover despite the rapid spread of omicron here and abroad.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates the number of new known COVID-19 infections has been growing steadily -- and rapidly -- since late October, with 73% of the latest new case reports coming from the omicron variant.
Source Fool.com
