Your Airfare Is Cheaper, and Wall Street Isn’t Happy About It
- Amid record profits, challenge seen to `long-term bull thesis'
- Carriers' three-year surge may come to an end in 2015
Ground crews load baggage onto a Spirit Airlines planes at the San Diego International Airport.
Photographer: Sam Hodgson/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
U.S. airlines are finding out that impressing investors takes more than $18 billion in annual profits.
A stock rally that began in 2012 is sputtering out, in part on concern that fare fights in a handful of U.S. cities will unravel a historic industry rebound. Shrinking fuel bills give carriers the flexibility to win business by undercutting each other on tickets -- and to Wall Street’s dismay, they’re doing just that.