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...

Scandinavia’s SAS posted a pretty rough quarter despite huge tailwinds from its healthy home economy and cheap fuel. Fierce competition, labor concerns and operational problems all share the blame. Is SAS’s long-haul strategy the answer? Or will it take ...

United last week revealed its new premium experience named Polaris, which includes its business class cabin. Ironically, the big design features in the cabin are all about missing the experience, because United wants its passengers to sleep right through...

Ryanair is like a runaway train, in that nothing seems to be able to stop it. Despite unfavorable hedges, terrorism, air traffic control strikes and plenty of economic weakness, the airline still managed to turn a profit during the historically weak firs...

Why are we seeing such different results from the two big Korean airlines? Korean Air again overcame systemic challenges to deliver a standout performance in the first quarter. And although the fuel situation certainly helped, the story wasn’t only about...

Emirates last week posted an operating margin nearing 10% for its fiscal year. That’s significantly better than the 7% the year before and a whole lot better than the 5%, 4%, and 3% posted in the years prior to that. Is the airline permanently out of its...

Is growing Eurowings a safe bet? Lufthansa’s low-cost unit had a rough first quarter and that might not be the last. Eurowings is growing like gangbusters, propelling itself into the teeth of a crowded airline market and doing so with an unproven low-cos...

Delta’s new CEO Ed Bastian thinks it’s great that the competition is trying to catch up to Delta in terms of operational performance. He also says, without hesitation, that the competition—namely American Airlines—won’t catch his airline and makes the ca...

While Delta, American and United have all seen both revenues and costs dropping, Southwest and Alaska just experienced the opposite in the first quarter. In fact, Southwest and Alaska rode a wave of rising revenues (say that three times fast) and rising ...

Here’s a simple recipe for success: Make all the right moves in all the right places. Whether overseas or in the U.S., Delta has managed to avoid the pockets of pain being experienced by its U.S. peers, who have even been successful in their own right. A...

Is China’s slowing economy taking its toll on the country’s Big Three carriers? So far Air China, China Eastern and China Southern have held up well and posted a rather good 2015. But the fourth quarter of 2015 showed some signs of deterioration—even by ...

Alaska Airlines clearly wants to be the dominant carrier on the West Coast, and if its purchase of Virgin America goes through, it will have four focus cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle—all clustered on the Pacific. Such a network m...

If the U.S. airline market were to see even more consolidation, what kind of effect would it have? That’s one question we consider in a discussion about the possible acquisition of Virgin America by another airline. We also talk about possible consolidat...

Attacks at airports are rare, and Tuesday’s bombing at Brussels Airport will no doubt have repercussions around the world. Which airlines will see the worst financial impact from the attacks? Brussels Airlines, not surprisingly, is most vulnerable. Unfor...

It’s good to be a Gulf carrier—Gulf carriers are well positioned to connect the whole world. But it might be better to be a near-the-Gulf carrier like Turkish Airlines. Turkish offers a blend of service as an intercontinental carrier and also as a gatewa...