The tourism industry has entered a period of prosperity, and the airlines are winning big! Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL.US) performance and outlook both exceed expectations.

The American Airlines Group Inc. industry giant Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL.US) saw its profits in the last few months of 2024 surpassing the widespread expectations of Wall Street analysts, thanks to strong growth in international tourism and business travel. The company stated that it expects the strong demand to continue into the new year. Delta Air Lines, Inc.'s continued strong profit expansion prospects also validate the prosperity of the global tourism industry in 2025, with airlines expected to continue the strong performance seen since 2024. The airline on Friday in a statement said that it expects adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2025 to be between 70 cents and $1, including the financial performance of the fourth quarter of 2024. In comparison, the average earnings per share outlook compiled by Bloomberg for Wall Street analysts is 76 cents. The airline stated that sales for the quarter are expected to increase by 9% compared to the same period last year, while analysts generally expect an increase of 5.75%. "As we look ahead to 2025, the supply-demand balance will be the best year we can remember." Delta Air Lines, Inc. CEO Ed Bastian said in an interview. "We are very optimistic about the financial performance in the first quarter and spring." Delta Air Lines, Inc. is the first large American airline to report earnings, and its extremely optimistic earnings outlook reflects a rebound in ticket prices after a slowdown in domestic market expansion by airlines, with demand for international flights and overseas travel remaining strong even in the winter. The analyst team at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft said that these factors, along with the sale of new high-end products by discount airlines, should enable American Airlines Group Inc. to achieve its first profit expansion since 2019 in what historically has been a relatively weak first quarter. Following the announcement of its financial results, Delta Air Lines, Inc.'s stock price reversed its pre-market decline, rising over 6% in pre-market trading as of the time of writing. The stock surged by 50% last year amidst strong travel demand driving the boom in the airline industry, more than doubling the performance of the S&P 500 index. According to data from the booking app Hopper Inc., domestic airfares in the US are still about 12% higher than the same period last year, despite the usual drop in prices in January compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Hopper expects US ticket prices to remain above the levels from 2023 and 2024 at least until mid-2022. Delta Air Lines, Inc. plans to continue investing actively in high-end air travel and related aviation services, in part to attract millennials. The airline company said that millennials spend more on air travel than all other generations. About 85% of the seats it plans to add in 2025 will be high-end seats. The airline also expects full-year adjusted earnings per share to "slightly exceed" $7.35, which is in line with analyst expectations. Wall Street investment firms are generally optimistic about the significant improvement in the regulatory environment for the aviation industry under the re-elected US President Donald Trump. Aviation executives generally believe that Trump's promised relaxation of regulatory systems and lower taxes could further boost the development of the tourism industry and overall demand for the aviation industry, and that mergers and acquisitions in the aviation industry may be more friendly compared to under the US government led by President Joe Biden. Profits and sales break records In terms of performance for the fourth quarter, Delta Air Lines, Inc. reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.85, higher than the average analyst forecast of $1.76. Overall sales for the fourth quarter were approximately $14.44 billion, higher than the expected $14.16 billion from Wall Street analysts. Bastian said that these results "are largely attributed to the healthy demand environment." He noted that business travel sales grew by 10% under the leadership of technology and financial services companies. Delta Air Lines, Inc.'s fourth-quarter international travel line sales increased by 6% year-over-year, with first-class sales even surpassing economy class by 6 percentage points. Loyalty points payments from credit card partner American Express Company soared by 14% to nearly $2 billion. The airline also announced that it will distribute up to $1.4 billion in profit sharing to employees next month. As global travel continues to boom, the aviation industry is expected to see continued substantial growth in performance in 2025 The record-breaking sales growth momentum of the American tourism industry in 2024 has driven the soaring performance of US airline stocks throughout the year, with American Airlines Group Inc. stock index rising by 60%, far outperforming the S&P 500 index. The continued strong profit expansion prospects also suggest an optimistic outlook for the stock market in 2025. After the COVID-19 pandemic, global airlines are striving to balance air capacity with surging demand, expanding routes and aircraft numbers to keep up with the so-called retaliatory global travel trend, and overall the airline industry's capacity is still unable to meet the increasingly strong demand brought by global travelers. It will take a long time for airlines to recover or expand capacity, such as reopening routes, recruiting and training crew members, and purchasing or leasing new aircraft, with these adjustments often lagging significantly behind the rapidly changing demand, resulting in a continued shortage of capacity. It is reported that the largestThe large-scale commercial aircraft manufacturer Boeing Company was forced to have its aircraft production capacity controlled by the regulatory authorities of American Airlines Group Inc. this year due to a series of scandals. On January 5, 2024, a Boeing Company 737 MAX 9 aircraft owned by Alaska Air Group, Inc. experienced a cabin door detachment incident during flight, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted the production speed of the Boeing Company 737 MAX after the incident.This kind of imbalance is most pronounced in low-cost airlines that primarily operate in the domestic market of the United States. Due to a long-term lack of capacity to meet demand, and high maintenance and monitoring costs for older aircraft, these airlines are now shifting towards providing a more high-end flight experience to attract higher budget global travelers. In the United States, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the scale of Americans flying has reached unprecedented levels. The busiest 10 travel days in the history of the Transportation Security Administration in the United States all appeared on the 2024 calendar, with U.S. tourists primarily focusing on destinations in Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. A forecast report from Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft shows that the gap between the "rich countries" and "poor countries" in the airline industry will continue to widen, and it is expected that airline giants such as Delta Air Lines, Inc., American Airlines Group Inc., and United Airlines will account for approximately 90% of operating and pre-tax profits in 2025. Barclays PLC Sponsored ADR stated that the significant rise in airline stocks in 2024 indicates a positive outlook for the global airline industry in the coming year. "We believe that by 2025, the fundamental performance of the airline industry will continue to significantly improve, providing important support for the strong profit margins and profit growth prospects of many airlines in this industry," wrote Ognski-led Barclays analysts in a research report.