Originally Posted by
davidchui
Similarly, in the US, the LCC / ULCCs average 6.4%, with Southwest at 8.8%, Alaska at 6.4%, Spirit at 5.5% and Jetblue at 5.0%. The legacy carriers average 5.4%, with Delta at 7.4%, United at 5.9% and American at 2.8%. Interestingly, the US legacy carriers are mostly performing poorly because of American, with Delta having the second highest RoA of any carrier in the US after Southwest and United coming in right between the better 2 and the worse 2 LCCs / ULCCs. Nonetheless, the trend of carriers that offer less and lesser premium products performing better financially is pretty clear in the US as well.
I suspect that a lot of that comes down to different financial regulatory environments that make co-branded credit cards very lucrative for US airlines. The joke about how the typical large US airline is actually a credit card company that just happen to fly planes isn’t too far off and American would be running in the red every year without its credit card arm. Similarly, Delta makes it pretty clear that holding the right premium American Express card is far more important than being the highest level published elite level in their program when it comes to lounge access.
The US airlines also don’t have duty of care rules for domestic flights during weather IRROPS, which has to be a big help in containing expenses since the typical large hub airport here will have multiple cascading issues from weather ground stops every year.
I will say that the thing that blows my mind is that a global airline like BA doesn’t seem to have true 24 hour phone customer service.