American Airlines And Southwest Comparison

The airline industry is an integral part of the United States economy. The industry provides air transport for over one million passengers in the United States each day. The first airline company began in 1914, when the first scheduled commercial flight took off. Mainline, regional, charter, and cargo are some popular types of airlines we have in the country. Mainline airlines are flights are the most popular, they are operated by an airline’s main operating unit (McCartney). Specific mainline airlines include American, Delta, Jetblue, Southwest and United. Regional airlines operate regional aircrafts and provide passenger air services to specific communities without major demand to attract mainline service (McCartney). Popular regional airlines include Cape Air, Great Lakes Airlines, PenAir, and Ravn Alaska. In this paper we will economically compare two of the biggest airline companies, American and Southwest, through history, revenue, pricing, stocks, and financial growth. Two of the largest mainline airlines that exist today are American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Both of these companies have expanded and currently fly internationally. They

American Airlines is expected to have a higher average growth rate over the next five years at 18.86% (“American Airlines”) compared to Southwest at 8%. However, financial analysts at NASDAQ project that the yearly increase in positive growth at Southwest from 2017 to 2018 will double the growth projected for American at 24.26% (“Southwest Airlines”). But those same analysts project that from 2018 to 2019, the growth of both companies will have a slower rate of 19.06% for American (“American Airlines”) and 17.7% for Southwest (“Southwest Airlines”). This information describes how American Airlines, as a larger company with more international resources still has a higher growth rate over a smaller airline firm with a more domestic target