Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Hawaiian Airlines' Traffic & Load Factor Rise in December

Read MoreHide Full Article

Hawaiian Holdings, Inc.’s wholly owned subsidiary Hawaiian Airlines reported traffic figures for December 2019. Traffic (measured in Revenue Passenger Miles or RPMs) increased 7.7% to 1.57 billion in the month. Available Seat Miles (ASMs) climbed 5.4% to 1.83 billion in the period. With traffic growth outpacing capacity expansion, load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) improved 190 basis points (bps) to 85.9%.

During 2019, the carrier recorded a 3.6% rise in RPMs while ASMs inched up 2.1%. As a result, load factor was up 130 bps. While passenger count slipped 0.8% in 2019, it augmented 2.2% in December.

Price Performance

Shares of Hawaiian Holdings have dipped 2.2% in a year’s time against the industry’s 9.9% rise. The downside is primarily due to decline in passenger revenues (which contribute more than 90% to the top line, slipped 0.8% in the first nine months of 2019) on account of pricing pressure following Southwest's entry in Hawaii, the primary market of Hawaiian Airlines.


 

Additionally, weakness pertaining to inter-island travel demand is hurting operating revenues per available seat miles (RASM: a key measure of unit revenues). As an evidence, RASM slid 2.3% in the first nine months of 2019. The company expects RASM to have decreased in the 0.5-3.5% range during the December quarter due to pressures related to average fares in the carrier’s domestic markets.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Hawaiian Holdings carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space are Controladora Vuela Compania de Aviacion, S.A.B. de C.V. (VLRS - Free Report) , Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL - Free Report) and SkyWest, Inc. (SKYW - Free Report) . While Controladora Vuela sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Delta and SkyWest carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Shares of Controladora Vuela, Delta and SkyWest have rallied more than 58%, 20% and 31%, respectively, in a year’s time.

5 Stocks Set to Double

Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.

Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>

Published in