Airline stocks could see best gains in years, Barron’s says

Spirit Airlines (SAVE) said this week that it is looking to restructure its debt, which would wipe out existing shareholders, though it says customers won’t be affected. It’s a significant setback for the industry’s biggest disrupter over the past decade, Avi Salzman writes in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Other players could head in the opposite direction. Spirit’s woes–and the election of Donald Trump-should give the rest of the stocks in the industry some of their best tailwinds in years, the author says. Trump is less likely to share the Biden administration’s concerns about monopoly power, the publication adds. A spate of airline mergers in the early 2010s gave Delta Air Lines (DAL), United Airlines (UAL), and American Airlines (AAL) substantial market power. Delta, United, JetBlue Airways, and Southwest Airlines more than doubled from late 2012 to late 2014, and American Airlines soared after emerging from bankruptcy in 2013. Some analysts see those kinds of gains returning.