美国航空公司：机场客流量（运输安全管理局安检）趋势持续改善，纽瓦克机场（EWR）结果略有好转

Today’s note summarizes airport level screening activity and weights the results by airlinecapacity. Foot traffic trends are better for Delta, JetBlue, and American, while United isworking through Newark challenges and lower activity at key leisure destinations weighs ondiscount airlines.Trends stabilized, closing the gap to 2024. Total screening activity stabilized post“liberation day” and continue to recover into the peak summer travel season, The three dayholiday weekend impacts the sequential trends inExhibit 2, with screenings on the Fridayheaded into Memorial Day weekend up 2%. Weighting screening activity at the airport levelby carrier capacity, it looks like foot traffic trends remain more favorable for Delta, JetBlue,and American. Alaska is close behind, and then we see a more pronounced fall off in activityfor the discounters and United (Exhibit 3). Newark airport — struggling with a runwayoutage and dealing with over-scheduling and air traffic control issues — is trending betterthan last week (-12% vs. -19%), a challenge for United as share shifts in the Northeast.Newark causing share shift, leisure destinations showing weakness. Leisuredestinations like Ft. Lauderdale and Hawaii (Honolulu / HNL, Maui Kahului / OGG, and Kona(KOA) are showing the highest percentage declines (-15% or more), while larger leisuremarkets like Orlando (MCO) and Miami (MIA) are also down 4/6% respectively. Airportsnot named Newark in the Northeast appear to be taking some share, and coastal hubsSFO and JFK are showing mid single digit growth in screening activity (see visualization inExhibit 4 and in geographic heat maps in Exhibit 5 and Exhibit 6). Trends at the 25 largestairports can be seen in Exhibit 7 and the contribution of each airport to each carrier’s uniquecapacity weighted measure of foot traffic are shown in Exhibit 8 through Exhibit 15.www.bernsteinresearch.com BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLETickerRatingAALODALOLUVMUALOSPXO - Outperform, M - Market-Perform, U - Underperform, NR - Not Rated, CS - Coverage SuspendedSource: Bloomberg, Bernstein estimates and analysis.INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONSTrends in airport foot traffic (as indicated by TSA screenings) continue to close the gap to 2024. We note a modestly bettersituation in Newark and mid-single digit growth in coastal markets as positive developments. We rate DAL, AAL, and UALOutperform and LUV Market-Perform.U.S. AIRLINES VALUATION COMPS TABLEEXHIBIT 1:Airline Comp TableAs of 05/26/2025Company NameAmerican Airlines Group Inc.Delta Air Lines IncUnited AirlinesSouthwest Airlines CoJetblue Airways Corp*Frontier Group Holdings Inc*Alaska Air Group, Inc.*Allegiant Travel Co*AverageMedian*not coveredCompany NameAmerican Airlines Group Inc.Delta Air Lines IncUnited AirlinesSouthwest Airlines CoJetblue Airways Corp*Frontier Group Holdings Inc*Alaska Air Group, Inc.*Allegiant Travel Co*AverageMedian*not coveredSource: Visible Alpha, Bernstein AnalysisDAL:We reach our one-year price target of $61 by capitalizing our NTM+1 EBITDAR estimate of $10.267B at a multiple of5.9x and deducting the value of net debt one year from now. Our $61 price target equates to 8.6x our NTM + 1 EPS estimate of$7.12.UAL:We reach our one-year price target of $105 by capitalizing our NTM+1 EBITDAR estimate of $9.257B at a multiple of5.3x and deducting the value of net debt one year from now. Our $105 price target equates to 8.5x our NTM+1 EPS estimate of$12.38.AAL:We reach our one-year price target of $15 by capitalizing our NTM+1 EBITDAR estimate of $6.719B at a multiple of 6.0xand deducting the value of net debt one year from now. Our $15 price target equates to 6.5x our NTM+1 adj. EPS estimate of$2.35.LUV:We reach our one-year price target of $31 by capitalizing our NTM+1 EBITDA estimate of $3.209B at a multiple of 5.0x,deducting the value of net debt one year from now, and adding proceeds from financing transactions related to the company’snew sale-leaseback strategy using a 15% discount rate on $450MM per year from 2025 through 2027. Our $31 price targetequates to 16.7x our NTM+1 EPS estimate of $1.85.U.S. AIRLINES 3 DETAILSEXHIBIT 2:Airport foot traffic has just about caught up to 2024 levels as measured by TSA screenings, withMemorial Day Friday traffic up 2% YoYPassenger ScreeningsSource: TSA, Bernstein AnalysisEXHIBIT 3:Weighting screenings at each airport by airline ASMs shows relative exposure to foot traffic trends thatis more favorable for Delta, JetBlue, and AmericanPeriod:Delta Air LinesJetBlueAmerican AirlinesAlaska AirlinesFrontier AirlinesSouthwest AirlinesUnited AirlinesSpirit AirlinesTotal MarketHeat map colors are indepently coded for each airline to show progress across time periodsSource: TSA, Bernstein AnalysisU.S. AIRLINES -10%-5%0%5%10%15%20%2,0002,1002,2002,3002,4002,5002,6002,7002/253/43/113/183/254/14/84/154/224/295/65/135/20ThousandsTrailing 7 Day Average TSA Screenings25/24 (Right Axis)202520242023TSA Screenings Weighted by Scheduled ASMsYTDLast 13 WeeksLast 4 Weeks