Airline stocks had an incredible 2024

Despite opening the year with a door plug blowout whose fallout reverberated throughout the industry, U.S. airlines had a pretty good year in the stock market. Bloomberg reports that the S&P Supercomposite Airlines index rose 57% this year, beating the S&P 500 by more than 30 percentage points — the biggest such gap in a decade.

The year had some particularly big Wall Street flops among carriers, with the now-bankrupt Spirit Airlines coming to mind. Its shares were delisted by the New York Stock Exchange and now trade among so-called penny stocks; they have lost nearly all their value. But after that late-in-the-year hiccup, various airlines have been upgrading their internal forecasts and pointing to an acceleration in customer demand.

One name in particular has had an especially good 2024. United Airlines (UAL-1.56%), which competes with Delta Air Lines (DAL-1.92%) as the preeminent domestic name in the space — the two companies are dueling to see who can build the country’s biggest airport lounge — has seen its stock rise nearly 140%. When a so-called “capacity crisis” of unsold seats depressed airfares, United told investors that it saw the headwind coming and cut down on supply in order to turn the situation into a major tailwind.