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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Alaska Air, JetBlue Airways, Gol Linhas, Air Canada and Delta Air Lines

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – January 11, 2024 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Alaska Air Group (ALK - Free Report) , JetBlue Airways (JBLU - Free Report) , Gol Linhas' , Air Canada (ACDVF - Free Report) and Delta Air Lines (DAL - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Airline Stock Roundup: 737 MAX "Fallout" & More

In the past week, Alaska Airlines' Ontario, CA-bound flight (1282) saw a panel and window being blown out of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet shortly after takeoff from Portland, OR. The fiasco prompted the flight to turn back immediately and make an unscheduled emergency landing. Thankfully, none of the 171 passengers or six crew members were seriously injured. Alaska Airlines is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alaska Air Group.

JetBlue Airways will have a new chief executive officer or CEO following incumbent Robin Hayes' decision to step down next month. Gol Linhas' consolidated traffic declined in December on a year-over-year basis due to weakness on the domestic front. Air Canada grabbed headlines by virtue of its strong operational performance for the 2023-end holiday travel period.

Recap of the Recent Most Important Stories

1 The alarming incident, which happened on Jan 5, 2024, on the Alaska Airlines flight prompted an investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets for safety-related inspection. Alaska Air has grounded its entire fleet of Boeing Max 9 for inspections and maintenance. ALK's fleet includes 65 such planes. The grounding of these planes led to 170 flight cancellations on Jan 7 by the Seattle, WA-based carrier. The flight cancellations caused unwanted harassment to passengers.

2. JetBlue's board of directors chose Joanna Geraghty as the new CEO of the company, effective Feb 12, 2024. Geraghty, currently serving as JBLU's president and chief operating officer, will succeed Robin Hayes, who has been leading the company for almost nine years. Geraghty has been working at JetBlue in various capacities for almost 20 years.

JBLU was also in the news recently when it launched daily flights between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Tallahassee International Airport. The story was covered in detail in theprevious week's write-up.

JetBlue currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can seethe complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

3. At Gol Linhas, consolidated revenue passenger kilometers (a measure of air traffic) inched down 2.5% on a year-over-year basis in December 2023. Available seat kilometers (a measure of capacity) fell 8.1%. The number of flight departures at GOL in December registered a 10% year-over-year decrease. Consolidated passengers on board declined 4.5% year over year. On the domestic front, the decline in revenue passenger kilometers (4.6%) was less than the fall in available seat kilometers (8.6%). Internationally, the load factor (% of seats filled by passengers) rose to 86.8% from 71.4% in December 2022.

4. During the year-end holiday travel period, 2.6 million customers were transported safely on Air Canada flights. This reflected a 10% year-over-year increase. During the period, ACDVF achieved some of its best operational results in a decade. The highly impressive performance saw the airline completing 98% of scheduled flights, with an on-time performance of 70%. The average delay was only 37 minutes, reflecting a 43% year-over-year reduction. The delay was 10% better than the 2019 pre-pandemic holiday period in 2019. Notably, the peak travel period for Air Canada was between Dec 18, 2023 and Jan 6, 2024.

What's Next in the Airline Space?

Investors await the fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report of Delta Air Lines, scheduled to be announced on Jan 12.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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