US airlines slog to slowest start since 2011
US airline shares are off to their worst start since 2011 amid concern that carriers are offering too many seats, chipping away at one of the industry's most closely watched measures of sales.
Revenue from each seat flown a mile fell in the first quarter and probably will decline again in the coming three months, according to analysts including Julie Yates of Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS AG's Darryl Genovesi. Some of those results may show up this week in airline traffic reports.
"It's really easy for investors to extrapolate a little bit of negative through the whole year," said Andrew Meister, an analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, which holds shares in each of the six largest US airlines among $105 billion in assets. "Investors are hoping for a little capacity discipline and maybe some cutback in flight schedules. Things like that help shore up the revenue environment."
