美国航空公司：安检趋势趋软……是时候增添一些夏日哀愁了？

U.S. Airlines: Screening trends softening… time to crank up someSummertime Sadness? Today’s note summarizes airport level screening activity and weights the results by airlinecapacity. David Vernon+1 917 344 8333david.vernon@bernsteinsg.com Seeing some YoY weakness in screenings over the past week. The past week hasshown some YoY softening in TSA screenings, with negative YoY growth worsening as theweek progressed (Exhibit 2). This comes after screenings had appeared to stabilize theweek prior. Most notably, the highly trafficked LAX (Los Angeles) airport — the top airport onthe list (Exhibit 4) organized by most screenings in the last 7 days — has seen traffic downdoubly digits YoY (-10.3%, which shows contraction compared to L4Ws down just 7.6%).Undoubtedly, this is weighing down the aggregate screening number across all airportsover the last 7 days, which has worsened by 50bps from the -2.5% YoY seen over the L4Ws.Florida, Phoenix, and Newark are experiencing meaningful YoY contraction as well, thoughNewark is actually showing sequential improvement (-15.4% L7Ds vs. -16.4% L4Ws). JFKand Las Vegas stand out as busy airports with strong positive YoY growth and improvingfoot traffic trends in the last week. Given the aforementioned traffic weakness in aggregateacross US airports, it’s no surprise that the Big 4 US airlines show each carrier’s uniquecapacity weighted measure of foot traffic down ~3-4% YoY over the L7Ds and sequentiallydropping off by a few bps compared to the L4Ws (Exhibit 5 through Exhibit 8). UAL is downthe most of the Big 4 due to its heavier Newark exposure (and we all know that airporthas been plagued by ATC issues, runway construction, and FAA-imposed flight schedulereductions of late!). Justine Weiss+1 917 344 8433justine.weiss@bernsteinsg.com Specialist Sales Steve Song+1 917 344 8401steve.song@bernsteinsg.com Still see evidence of share shift away from Newark (EWR) softness in more leisure-oriented markets.JFK and LGA, EWR’s most immediate competitors, are seeing foottraffic up YoY (+3.2% and +40bps, respectively) over the last week, while EWR continueson its path of double-digit YoY declines. Looks like the other New York Area airports arepicking up some of EWR’s slack. There’s also evidence of the soft leisure travel narrativeshowing up in foot traffic data, with popular leisure destinations like Florida (MIA and FLL)having airports with some of the worst YoY declines in the past week (MIA -7.2%, FLL-14.4%). Spirit, with its more leisure-travel-oriented business model, is down the most ofthe major US airlines in the L7Ds (Spirit -5.2%), driven by its heavy FLL exposure (Exhibit12). BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLE INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONS Some softness in TSA screening data seen in the last week, dropping to single-digit YoY declines following a short period ofstabilization. Things certainly haven't fallen off a cliff, but we’re definitely seeing a small drop off, and leisure-focused airlines likeSpirit are suffering most due to consumer uncertainty/weakness of late. The Big 4 are all down by similar amounts YoY in thepast week, with DAL showing the best numbers (only -2.7%) and UAL the worst (-4.1%) due to heavy EWR exposure. VALUATION COMPS TABLE EXHIBIT 1:Airline Comp Table DAL: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. DETAILS EXHIBIT 2:After seeming to just about catch up to ‘24 levels last week, this week’s TSA screenings are showing abit of a drop off, with worsening YoY trends as the week progressed Florida markets, Los Angeles, and Phoenix continue to be down YoY and in the last 7 days have worsened vs. the L4Ws. Newarkis still severely down YoY, but showing some improvement in the last 7 days compared to L4Ws. JFK and Las Vegas stand out asbusy airports with strong positive YoY growth and improving foot traffic trends in the last week. TOP 20 Airports per Airline YoY Screen