U.S. first-quarter earnings are typically a non-event, but not this year. Aviation Week editors look ahead to updates from airlines and OEMs and share what they will be watching for.

Quarterly Qhaos—How Hard Will Geopolitics Hit Commercial Aviation?

Aviation Week's Check 6 Podcast

Hello and welcome to Aviation Week's Check 6 Podcast. This week we're taping just ahead of first quarter earnings calls and getting ready to hear from Alaska, United, American Southwest, and RTX and Boeing. An earnings preview is a bit of an unusual topic for us on this podcast, but these are unusual times. Since the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes in Iran six weeks ago and we now have some sort of double blockade situation in the Strait of Hormuz, the playing field has changed.

In purely economic terms, we went from slow growth in mature markets and higher growth in emerging markets to the big oil shock, an environment that could be a powerful catalyst for change. So what can we expect on airlines, manufacturers, suppliers, and MRO as we head into first quarter earnings? With me to discuss are Aviation Week Senior Editor Sean Broderick, CAPA Senior Analyst Lori Ransom, and Aviation Week Executive Editor for Business Michael Bruno.

Lori, let's kick it off with airlines first. We already had Delta report its earnings for the quarter and we had an investors conference in mid-March that gave us some early insights. In the U.S., at least, carriers are raising fares and fees to offset higher fuel and so far seeing no slowdown in demand. So what's been your impression so far about how airlines are navigating this challenge ahead of the updates that we'll hear next week?

Yeah, thank you, Christine. And I think, not to diminish what's happening right now, but if you go back five, six years, or 20 years for that matter, this is the latest headwind, right? I think what is different this time in the case of U.S. Airlines is they're not hedged.

Quarterly Qhaos—How Hard Will Geopolitics Hit Commercial Aviation?

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Quarterly Qhaos—How Hard Will Geopolitics Hit Commercial Aviation?

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.