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Delta, United Airlines under pressure amid weakening demand

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Delta Airlines (DAL) experienced a decline in stock prices after the company lowered its forecast due to economic uncertainty and weaker travel demand. This follows a similar announcement from United Airlines (UAL), which also reported a drop in travel demand.

Citi managing director Stephen Trent joins Morning Brief hosts Madison Mills and Brad Smith to share his insights on the situation.

"In terms of the long-term outlook, there is not a great deal of impetus to go and make big moves in any investment cases for this group," Trent says.

Trent also highlights the significant external factors affecting the airline industry, such as aviation accidents and natural phenomena like wildfires.

Despite the current challenges, he believes the airline industry has the potential for adjustment, adding, "Can we see some pivots in capacity over the next several months? I would certainly not rule that out."

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.

00:00 Speaker A

Steve, good to have you back here with us. You have a buy rating on Delta and an $80 price target. Now, I know for, you know, legal reasons, OGC, there are probably a lot of considerations before you come and say to us that this would prompt you to revise your targets. But, is that a conversation that you're having with your team about where you're kind of looking across the airline landscape and trying to figure out how to bake that into even what are your top picks within this industry?

01:56 Steve

Yeah, morning and thank, thank you for having me on. I think in terms of the long-term outlook, there's not a great deal of impetus to go and make big moves in any investment cases for this group. I think over the short term, there's a huge amount of noise. Uh we have Dodge cuts, the Dodge impact on government employment and government travel. There's uncertainty about tariffs. And at the same time we've had all of this, we've had several high profile aviation accidents since the beginning of February. Um, and some natural phenomena to to deal with such as the wildfires out on the West Coast. So on a short-term basis, the move we've seen has been extremely aggressive in terms of share price action. Uh, I don't necessarily think that changes the long-term view, but certainly over the short term, uh, what we end up doing in one queue in terms of our expectations, uh, could at least, uh, partially determine what nuances we make on on on long-term estimates. But I don't see any of this, uh, leading us to, uh, suddenly have a an entirely different thesis on the group.

05:21 Speaker B

So, Steve, I want to get into how it might impact your long-term thesis. But I'm viewing this through the lens of something Ed Bastion told us in January. He said supply demand balance is as good as I can ever recall it being. We are just two months away from him saying that something shifted very quickly. What exactly was it? And does it weigh on the long-term thesis for Delta?

06:28 Steve

Yeah, absolutely. So I think in terms of what shifted, I would say, uh, you've actually had some, uh, government level decisions. Uh, for example, on on on tariff policy and that stuff is way above my pay grade. Um, you've also, unfortunately, had the the aviation accidents that I mentioned and and some natural phenomena. But I think what Ed was getting at in terms of the group's discipline is important. Look, we had, uh, early last summer, uh, concerns about domestic capacity, uh, that there was, uh, too much supply in there. Uh, and that's something that as we shifted to the third quarter of last year, um, ended up getting corrected, uh, rather quickly. So that is an important shift versus how the group has responded to this over the last 25 years. Um, do you have these kind of self-help opportunities today? Can we see some pivots, uh, in capacity over the next several months? I would certainly not rule that out.

This post was written by Josh Lynch