The travel industry has been witnessing positive momentum in 2022, with an expected contribution of $8.6 trillion to the global economy this year. The new survey emphasizes the industry’s rebound trends, which almost match pre-pandemic levels. Besides, the global passenger air transport market is expected to hit $657.15 billion in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 6% between 2020 and 2025. The industry’s growth will mainly continue due to the post-pandemic rebound in commercial and non-commercial flights.
Furthermore, investors’ optimism in this space is evidenced by the U.S. Global Jets ETF’s (JETS) 11% returns over the past month, compared to the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF’s (SPY) 2.5% loss over the same period.
With this in mind, today I’ll analyze and compare two airline stocks, United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL) and American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL), to find out which is a better investment for 2022.
United Airlines operates as an air transportation company in the US, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America. The company also offers a variety of other services for third parties, including catering, ground handling, training, and maintenance services. American Airlines is a Texas-based network air carrier that offers scheduled air transportation services for passengers and cargo through its hubs in the US and partner gateways. The company has a mainline fleet of 865 aircraft.
Year-to-Date (YTD), UAL stock has soared 16%, while shares of AAL have risen 12.5% over the same period.
Recent Quarterly Performance & Analysts Estimates
On April 20th, United Airlines issued an earnings report for the first quarter of 2022. In Q1, United Airlines’ total revenue was up 135.1% on a year-over-year basis to $7.57 billion. This revenue growth was achieved due to the substantial increase in Passenger revenue to $6.35 billion, compared to $2.32 billion in 1Q21. However, the company’s total revenue figure stood at 21.1%…