Analyzing the Big 3: The airline that won 2024

In the United States, there are three major legacy carriers that not only have some of the industry's largest market shares but also have massive networks with dozens of hubs between them.

These three airlines, Delta Air Lines , American Airlines, and United Airlines, are among the most important carriers in the United States, and each has grown as the product of multiple mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcy restructurings over nearly a century of industry development.

These three carriers have had a momentous 2024, which has seen large-scale change across the legacy airline landscape.

In the years following the pandemic, legacy airline business models have shifted significantly, and 2024 started to give us some ideas as to how these changes might affect the bottom lines of some of America's most important carriers.

In the years before the pandemic (and for decades prior), airlines had overwhelmingly developed extensive route networks and funneled passengers through large hubs.

These carriers also organized their entire business model on serving high-volume business travelers, with lavish premium cabins and flight schedules carefully tailored to the needs of business travelers.

Now, legacy airlines operate with some noteworthy differences, primarily as a result of COVID-era remote work policies significantly reducing the amount of business travel.

As a result, carriers began to tailor their route networks and loyalty programs to serve a slightly more diverse group of passengers, targeting more high-frequency leisure travelers.

Additionally, airline passengers are increasingly willing to spend more on premium economy and business class cabins, marking a general shift towards higher demand for more comfortable travel experiences. As a result, legacy carriers have continued to build larger and more lavish premium cabins.

Across the board, legacy airlines had a good year, all of which returned strong returns to investors and expanded at least in some capacity, although some did better than others.

In this article, let's take a deeper look at how Delta, American, and United fared in 2024, and examine which of these three major airlines achieved the most over the past twelve months.

Delta Air Lines has long been the industry's leader in terms of profit and service

Delta has long been the industry leader in terms of both profitability and inflight service quality, at least over the past decade. The company's financial success can be attributed to careful management of resources and a valuable network of airline hubs, stretching across the country from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Seattle Tacoma International Airport (SEA).

One of the airline's biggest assets is its cobranded partnership with American Express, the company that administers the airline's extremely popular line of consumer credit cards.

The airline's loyalty program has continued to expand, building out new lounges, establishing more partnerships, and finding even more unique ways to reward passengers.

From a financial perspective, Delta has had a pretty solid year, one in line with the airline's relatively steady recovery from the C.O.V.I.D.-.1.9 pandemic, which has centered around getting consumers to book more expensive tickets with the carrier. Furthermore, the carrier has not struggled to leverage its basic economy fares to get travelers away from budget airlines.

Where Delta outperformed was the stock market, with securities now trading at prices that pushed past the expectations of even the most bullish analysts.

At the beginning of the year, Delta shares were trading at just over $40, and today they are trading at over $60, offering impressive year-to-date returns of over 53%, performing just shy of twice as well as the S&P 500 during one of the best years in the past decade.

Delta Air Lines also looks like it is in a strong position to continue its growth throughout this year. The airline has continued to introduce new fuel-efficient aircraft like the Airbus A350, A330neo, and Airbus A320neo to its fleet, lowering overall fuel costs. The carrier has also expanded its operations greatly at nontraditional airports, including all the following:

• Tampa International Airport (TPA)
• Nashville International Airport (BNA)
• Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

Some, however, are noting that the airline's growth could be set to decline, with 2025 growth estimates from Yahoo Finance sitting at -2%. Furthermore, other analysts have noted that the airline is increasingly losing ground to its biggest competitor.

United is slowly closing the gap between it and Delta at the top of the US airline industry

While Delta has historically sat atop the commercial airline industry with its financial performance and strong reputation for service, United Airlines has slowly made up significant ground in the duel for dominance in the US commercial market.

While United has undergone extensive network expansion and continued to add new, fuel-efficient aircraft to its ever-expanding fleet, the most noteworthy thing about the airline in 2025 is its unprecedented stock performance.

United Airlines was the top-performing airline stock on the entire New York Stock Exchange this year, and its impressive performance has raised excitement about the carrier's future and curiosity as to what factors have led to its success.

At the beginning of the year, United's stock, much like Delta's, was trading around $40 per share and the company's growth appeared to stagnate throughout the first two quarters.

But towards the end of the year, the security went on a bullish run and by the holidays was closing at over $100 per share. Over the year, the company gave investors industry-leading returns of nearly 145%.

The airline's stock price has outperformed the airline industry by more than a factor of three and outperformed the S&P 500 by more than a factor of 13.

The bigger question with United, however, remains whether this unbelievably bullish growth can be replicated in the coming 12–18 months. The airline has pointed to expansion of capacity on regional routes, extensive expansion of major hubs, and launch of flights to new medium-demand long-haul destinations as major sources of future potential growth.

American Airlines has undoubtedly had the worst year of the three

To be fair to American Airlines, it did not actually have all that bad of a year. The carrier pursued growth initiatives across its fleet, operational network, and hub system, and completed its post-pandemic recovery. After three straight years of weak stock performance, American Airlines was able to give investors lukewarm returns of around 26%.

American's long-term prospects are up for debate to many industry observers. Some, such as Brian Sumers in his publication The Airline Observer, will point to American's weak presence in lucrative northeast and West Coast markets as factors that could inhibit growth.

Analysts that are more bullish on the airline's long-term prospects, however, do see future potential in the airline's Miami International Airport (MIA) hub, with the city's growing status as a business hub.

So what's the bottom line? Which legacy airline won in 2024?

While there are undoubtedly some industry observers who will argue that Delta Air Lines had the best performance in 2024 due to its continued network and fleet expansion as well as the growth of its loyalty program, a stronger case can likely be made that United Airlines had the best year.

Not only did the carrier's stock outperform every other US airline, but the company behind it also is pursuing some pretty ambitious expansion initiatives.

United's MileagePlus loyalty program is also set for continued growth, and the airline's line of cobranded cards is continuing to become popular. The airline's industry-leading expansion into long-haul lower-capacity markets using Boeing 787 and soon Airbus A321XLR aircraft has raised many eyebrows and left many wondering if United will be able to continue this growth pattern in 2025.