When is a $2 billion annual profit disappointing? Answer: When you’re a giant airline group like Lufthansa, and $2 billion amounts to a mere 5% operating margin—and that lackluster result comes despite fuel costs dropping 16% year over year. But there ar...

Once again we consider the ongoing demand problems in Turkey. The numbers are in, and they’re not pretty. Turkish Airlines posted a $300 million loss in 2016. Pegasus Airlines chipped another $50 million loss, a comparably bad number. But there are signs...

With its fourth quarter results and a standout 2016, IAG, the airline group that includes British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, continues to separate itself from the other two members of Europe’s Big Three airline groups. And leading the way w...

Air France/KLM had some good news in 2016. For one thing, its Transavia unit broke even. Also, KLM made a decent profit. But the story is rather disappointing from there, with the group posting a mere 4% operating margin for the year. Could some positive...

Europe certainly has its share of struggling airlines, but Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air are not among them. And for Ryanair and Wizz, fourth quarter earnings simply topped off a triumphant 2016. (easyJet has yet to report on its fourth quarter.) In the ...

Japan Airlines is enjoying a charmed life right now. How good is it? In 2016, JAL was the most profitable of the large global airlines outside the U.S. All Nippon Airlines is also doing pretty well. ANA has narrowed the gap between it and JAL, which is s...

While the revenue story has improved for U.S. carriers, the cost story has become a headwind. Still, as American Airlines demonstrated in its fourth quarter results, costs are a headwind that can be overcome. With that, AA joined Delta and United in deli...

By just a tenth of a percent, United’s fourth quarter operating profit margin bested that of Delta—and likely that of American, which reports later—making United, for the quarter, No.1 among the Big Three U.S. carriers. So, has the natural order shifted ...

Rising labor costs at Delta dented its fourth quarter results significantly—but not enough to prevent the airline from posting a terrific profit for 2016. And the big story within the story is that revenues have stopped falling. All in all, Delta remains...

SAS has tried and tried to turn itself around, but to no avail—at least judging by its recent earnings report. In fact, on profits alone, the airline’s third quarter was a step backward. What’s going wrong, and can it be fixed? Meanwhile, Frontier Airlin...

Call it our year-in-preview show. In this first episode of 2017, we look at some of the more interesting stories that are ushering in the airline industry’s new year. Of course, 2017 doesn’t promise answers to all our questions. But we can hope, can’t we...

If anybody needed a reminder that the airline business is an interesting business, they got it last week as Air Berlin announced it will be handing over a big chunk of itself to arch competitor Lufthansa. Will Air Berlin be saved by shrinking itself? Not...

South African Airways finally published its fiscal year results for the 12 months ending March 2015. Yes, that’s 2015. And the result—a $442m net loss—wasn’t worth the wait. But with the Ebola scare and high oil prices now in the past, how is the airline...

Because Frontier Airlines is a non-publicly-traded carrier (which, for one thing, means it doesn’t have earnings calls), it’s all the more interesting to interview the airline's CEO Barry Biffle. Of course, we asked about a possible merger with Spirit or...

Despite a major oil bust and the weakening currency that followed, Canada’s airlines continue to plod along. Make no mistake, macro issues are leaving a mark on the earnings reports of Air Canada and WestJet, but the story is more about resiliency than i...

Qantas reported a best-ever annual result. Not bad for a company that’s 95 years old. And not bad for a company that was barely breaking even just a few years ago. Virgin Australia, on the other hand, with a 2% operating margin, isn’t breaking any record...

Korean carriers Asiana and Korean Air are being squeezed between rapid growth from Chinese carriers and new capacity coming out of Japan. But nonetheless, the two Korean carriers posted some of the most improved earnings among widebody carriers worldwide...

One of the bright spots in the Lufthansa Group’s second quarter earnings report was its Swiss unit, which bested Lufthansa mainline, the Austrian unit and even the healthy maintenance unit. Meanwhile, Eurowings was the worst performing airline of the gro...

The second quarter year-over-year profit margin improved at Air France/KLM, but only because of a huge windfall from fuel. In fact, the real story is that the airline group is largely missing out on profits that normally would come from such a lift from ...

Earnings season is in full swing and really there’s too much to talk about within the average commute or treadmill run. So we’ll talk fast. And in this episode, our fast talk starts with American Airlines’ billion-dollar quarter and, naturally, how that ...

Delta Airlines gets a lot of play in this episode, but it’s not because we’re obsessed with Delta. Rather, there are two practical reasons: First, Delta is the the earliest of the big airlines to report. Secondly, with Delta’s global reach, you can learn...

Brazil’s Azul is no doubt an innovative airline. But has it become too clever by half with its low-cost longhaul venture? A couple years into the experiment, we discuss it in this episode. Meanwhile, its competitor Gol is asking for relief from its bondh...

Turkish Airlines and its cross-town rival Pegasus were seeing trouble in their business before the attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport. In this episode we try to assess—or at least speculate—how the attack will further hurt the two airline...

In the wake of Brexit, will the U.K. be able to remain in the European Common Aviation Area? We don’t know. But we do know that if the U.K. is relegated to some other status, it would obviously impact airlines inside and outside the U.K. In this episode ...

Wherever you go in the airline industry, you’re never too far from Singapore Airlines, a carrier that played a primary role in—count ‘em— four of the bigger storylines last week. Singapore is pulling out of Brazil. In India, Singapore will likely be a ke...