JustSomeGuy1978

Well today Air Canada broke through $17 per share again. Shares have not been at this level seen in 10 years.

JustSomeGuy1978

$18 per share with news over the weekend that AC management plans to buy back up to 22,364,183 shares between now and May 2018.

Interesting quote: "Air Canada believes that, from time to time, the market price of its Shares may not fully reflect the underlying value of its business and future prospects. In such circumstances, Air Canada may purchase for cancellation outstanding Shares, thereby benefitting all shareholders by increasing the underlying value of the remaining Shares."

jerryhung

That NCIB news was Friday morning (it +1.73% on Friday)

Anyway, sold more at $18.05

1 month range $12.49 to $18.05 (+45%) is a crazy run
Good ER, dropping Aeroplan, Foreign limit % increase
They all timed well into this run

Poor WJA
1-month WJA 0%/flat vs. AC +40%
YTD WJA 99% vs. AC +130%

tcook052

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle35572847/

Air Canada shares hit 10-year high on bullish Q2 outlook

Shareholder

Stock wise, WS is a mature company whose stock has always been valued on the companies assets and performance/results. AC's stock has been volatile because of market suspicions on its ultimate performance after leaving bankruptcy protection and ACE's very model IPO pricing at under $2. At the time, while AC did have assets with a real value, it also had pension and other liabilities that had to be addressed. As these concerns have been addressed one-by-one, the stock has increased in value. And now, as restructuring and performance have achieved their goals -- along with the huge drop in fuel prices and thus operating costs -- the market looks more favourably on AC and this has resulted in a more realistic share pricing.

Further, WS is very restricted in its growth while AC has continued to employ its relatively new wide body fleet into international destinations. With the domestic/transborder markets pretty much saturated, WS's growth will only come from venturing more boldly into international destinations but this will be both expensive (new aircraft, overseas infrastructure and marketing) and time consuming. Thus its share price will only grow slowly compared to AC...though that airline's share growth will soon require a decision on dividend payments (which is another factor where WS is considered "mature" and off-sets continuing share price rises).

Yesterday's bump in AC's share price has likely brought it to a plateau for the balance of the year, and we know full 2017 performance patterns vs those of previous years based on the stabilizing of routes and aircraft assignment.

YYC009

Another amazing quarter today for Air Canada! More than double analysts expectations... wow!

http://www.bnn.ca/air-canada-s-q2-pr...affic-1.819081

YYC009

In a note to clients, RBC Capital Markets analyst Walter Spracklin said the results were “significantly better than ‘significantly better’.”

“The company exceeded expectations that were already revised higher on Q2; it indicated that the demand environment remains robust into Q3; and it provided material increases to its guidance in virtually all metrics,” Spracklin wrote.

“Combine this with what we view as a significantly undervalued stock that is trading well below peers, and a key potential catalyst to come in the form of the September Investor Day, we continue to see AC as the stock to own in our coverage universe.”

http://business.financialpost.com/tr...c-60ab89da87ce

SparseFlyer

Impossible.

AC was already confirmed worst airline 2017 empty planes exposed by FT Financial Experts and dodgy newsletters.

Please short AC stock to the max.

ridefar

Amidst the sarcasm, maybe you should consider that the things that make for a crappy airline (for passengers) make for a good airline (for shareholders). Shareholders don't have to care if the plane is duct taped together. Shareholders don't care if OTP performance is lousy, or if their customer service during YYZ construction was terrible, or if they abonded 3 blind kids and their puppy in the airport for 23 days because they didn't have 6 pieces of ID each. I made that last one up. Shareholders care about profit. If you can save money by running dirty planes and using duct tape instead of real repairs, shareholders are happy. Calin and crew give no appearance they care about customer retention of the value of their assets in 5 years. They are squeezing now, and presumably going to cut bait shortly.

acysb87

"or if they abonded 3 blind kids and their puppy in the airport for 23 days because they didn't have 6 pieces of ID each"

Puppies need 6 pieces of ID?

SparseFlyer

Fairly certain shareholders care about customer perception as it does affect potential profitability.

Also fairly certain they are extremely interested in OTP. I doubt the airline makes more money by making passengers late and paying crews for unnecessary overtime and rebooking costs.

Plumber

Some shareholders care about short term profit. Others are in for the long term. All are shareholders and need to be serviced by AC.

They have been executing their plans successfully. They are reining in their FFP. They are filling the planes.....all in the face of complaints that they dont care about their customers. Many here on FT are dissatisfied...some have left...yet some are very happy customers of AC.

Of course, the unknown for AC is when and where will the next Black Swan event will occur, and how bad will it be?? These always have the potential to put the immediate brakes on profit and growth.

HangTen

If someone can find a publicly traded sched airline in North America that reported a worse operating margin, (7.19% vs 8.01% last year) and a higher break-even load factor last quarter, (78.3% vs 78.2% last year), please let me know.

As usual, AC is at the bottom of the metrics chart, even in their second best quarter.

Meanwhile, after 3 years of trying to put the screws to WS, WS's YOY margin was up almost a full percentage point, even with fuel for all being up about 17% yoy.

In the "EBITDAR mention in the press release sweepstakes", AC mentioned the term 26 times. The cumulative mentions of EBITDAR in all of WS, UAL, AA, Delta and Southwest 2Q earnings press releases was, (count 'em), 0.

Not one EBITDAR mention. Apparently, and quite correctly, the other airlines don't consider EBITDAR to be a meaningful indicator of anything.

Enjoy the upside.

CloudsBelow

Hard to argue with the doom and gloom here about AC’s stock run-up. The duct tape, runway work, Exec short term view, earnings release indicators. Brutal. We could go on forever. Oh, Oh, Let’s not overlook all the stress and tough decisions shareholders and employees face regarding all that extra wealth - Where are they going to spend it, huh??? New car? Kid’s school? Accelerated mortgage pymt? Vacation? Suckers. Would hate to be in their shoes now. They were much happier in the good'ol high CASM, sytem-gaming days when they didn’t have to deal with annoying distractions like share appreciation

SparseFlyer

Yeah. I can't believe people try to make money.

We should all receive the same amount of money. What's the average Canadian income nowadays? $40,000?

We should just all cap our salaries at $40,000. Life would be much simpler.