LUV vs. DAL, UAL, ALK, SKYW, CPA, JBLU, ALGT, RYAAY, AAL, and ULCC
Should you be buying Southwest Airlines stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southwest Airlines include Delta Air Lines (DAL), United Airlines (UAL), Alaska Air Group (ALK), SkyWest (SKYW), Copa (CPA), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Allegiant Travel (ALGT), Ryanair (RYAAY), American Airlines Group (AAL), and Frontier Group (ULCC). These companies are all part of the "air transportation, scheduled" industry.
Southwest Airlines vs.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, community ranking, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.
Delta Air Lines received 112 more outperform votes than Southwest Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 76.70% of users gave Delta Air Lines an outperform vote while only 68.95% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote.
Delta Air Lines currently has a consensus price target of $78.22, suggesting a potential upside of 16.32%. Southwest Airlines has a consensus price target of $32.31, suggesting a potential upside of 5.33%. Given Delta Air Lines' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Delta Air Lines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.
Delta Air Lines has higher revenue and earnings than Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Delta Air Lines, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Delta Air Lines pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Southwest Airlines pays an annual dividend of $0.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Delta Air Lines pays out 11.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Southwest Airlines pays out -1,028.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Southwest Airlines is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
69.9% of Delta Air Lines shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.8% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Delta Air Lines shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Delta Air Lines has a beta of 1.35, suggesting that its stock price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southwest Airlines has a beta of 1.14, suggesting that its stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Delta Air Lines has a net margin of 5.61% compared to Southwest Airlines' net margin of -0.06%. Delta Air Lines' return on equity of 30.43% beat Southwest Airlines' return on equity.
In the previous week, Southwest Airlines had 17 more articles in the media than Delta Air Lines. MarketBeat recorded 41 mentions for Southwest Airlines and 24 mentions for Delta Air Lines. Delta Air Lines' average media sentiment score of 0.91 beat Southwest Airlines' score of 0.62 indicating that Delta Air Lines is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
Delta Air Lines beats Southwest Airlines on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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This page (NYSE:LUV) was last updated on 2/1/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
