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Southwest Airlines (LUV) Competitors

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$26.49 +0.03 (+0.11%)
Closing price 03:59 PM Eastern
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$26.37 -0.12 (-0.47%)
As of 07:51 PM Eastern
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LUV vs. DAL, UAL, ALK, CPA, SKYW, 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), Copa (CPA), SkyWest (SKYW), 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 business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, community ranking, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Delta Air Lines presently has a consensus price target of $61.06, indicating a potential upside of 46.64%. Southwest Airlines has a consensus price target of $30.54, indicating a potential upside of 15.31%. Given Delta Air Lines' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Delta Air Lines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.

Company Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
Delta Air Lines
0 Sell rating(s)
3 Hold rating(s)
10 Buy rating(s)
2 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.93
Southwest Airlines
6 Sell rating(s)
9 Hold rating(s)
4 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
1.89

Delta Air Lines has higher revenue and earnings than Southwest Airlines. Delta Air Lines is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Southwest Airlines, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

CompanyGross RevenuePrice/Sales RatioNet IncomeEarnings Per SharePrice/Earnings Ratio
Delta Air Lines$61.94B0.44$3.46B$5.647.38
Southwest Airlines$27.58B0.55$465M$0.8531.16

In the previous week, Southwest Airlines had 20 more articles in the media than Delta Air Lines. MarketBeat recorded 65 mentions for Southwest Airlines and 45 mentions for Delta Air Lines. Delta Air Lines' average media sentiment score of 0.66 beat Southwest Airlines' score of 0.37 indicating that Delta Air Lines is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company Very Positive Positive Neutral Negative Very Negative Overall Sentiment
Delta Air Lines
21 Very Positive mention(s)
5 Positive mention(s)
10 Neutral mention(s)
5 Negative mention(s)
3 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive
Southwest Airlines
15 Very Positive mention(s)
8 Positive mention(s)
21 Neutral mention(s)
13 Negative mention(s)
4 Very Negative mention(s)
Neutral

Delta Air Lines pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Southwest Airlines pays an annual dividend of $0.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Delta Air Lines pays out 10.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Southwest Airlines pays out 84.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Delta Air Lines has a beta of 1.23, indicating that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southwest Airlines has a beta of 0.94, indicating that its stock price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Delta Air Lines received 120 more outperform votes than Southwest Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 76.56% of users gave Delta Air Lines an outperform vote while only 68.45% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote.

CompanyUnderperformOutperform
Delta Air LinesOutperform Votes
1261
76.56%
Underperform Votes
386
23.44%
Southwest AirlinesOutperform Votes
1141
68.45%
Underperform Votes
526
31.55%

Delta Air Lines has a net margin of 5.61% compared to Southwest Airlines' net margin of 1.69%. Delta Air Lines' return on equity of 30.41% beat Southwest Airlines' return on equity.

Company Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
Delta Air Lines5.61% 30.41% 5.30%
Southwest Airlines 1.69%5.77%1.70%

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 insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Delta Air Lines beats Southwest Airlines on 16 of the 21 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.
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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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LUV vs. The Competition

MetricSouthwest AirlinesAir transportation, scheduled IndustryTransportation SectorNYSE Exchange
Market Cap$15.20B$2.18T$287.28B$18.91B
Dividend Yield2.91%3.60%4.18%4.14%
P/E Ratio36.797.2613.1132.57
Price / Sales0.55194.35218.7128.52
Price / Cash8.147.5211.5417.53
Price / Book1.521.591.804.45
Net Income$465M$805.72M$515.10M$1.02B
7 Day Performance7.19%0.71%3.48%3.51%
1 Month Performance-23.59%-13.71%-4.07%-5.38%
1 Year Performance-2.81%-18.47%-9.57%4.23%

Southwest Airlines Competitors List

CompanyMarketRankShare PriceAnalysts' Price Target1Y Price PerformanceMarket CapRevenueP/E RatioEmployee CountIndicator(s)
LUV
Southwest Airlines
4.454 of 5 stars
$26.49
+0.1%
$30.54
+15.3%
-9.7%$15.20B$27.58B36.7966,700Earnings Report
Analyst Forecast
Options Volume
Analyst Revision
News Coverage
DAL
Delta Air Lines
4.9276 of 5 stars
$39.25
-3.9%
$61.06
+55.6%
-12.4%$25.63B$61.94B7.3695,000Dividend Announcement
UAL
United Airlines
4.7465 of 5 stars
$64.79
-2.3%
$101.95
+57.4%
+31.1%$21.23B$57.74B6.8792,800Analyst Forecast
Positive News
ALK
Alaska Air Group
4.8188 of 5 stars
$43.65
-3.4%
$70.15
+60.7%
-6.2%$5.36B$11.74B14.3125,500Earnings Report
Analyst Forecast
News Coverage
CPA
Copa
4.8449 of 5 stars
$87.51
-0.7%
$153.29
+75.2%
-8.0%$3.68B$3.44B6.016,130Positive News
SKYW
SkyWest
4.7687 of 5 stars
$82.54
-3.3%
$120.67
+46.2%
+24.9%$3.35B$3.53B10.6213,121Earnings Report
News Coverage
Gap Down
JBLU
JetBlue Airways
3.7623 of 5 stars
$3.57
-2.7%
$5.17
+44.7%
-33.3%$1.26B$9.28B-1.5320,000Upcoming Earnings
ALGT
Allegiant Travel
4.4824 of 5 stars
$40.95
-7.3%
$67.00
+63.6%
-20.5%$750.94M$2.51B-3.065,320Analyst Revision
RYAAY
Ryanair
4.2878 of 5 stars
$44.70
-2.1%
$147.00
+228.9%
-66.5%$23.78B$13.82B13.7019,100Positive News
AAL
American Airlines Group
4.897 of 5 stars
$9.08
-4.0%
$16.95
+86.6%
-31.0%$5.97B$54.21B7.96129,700Earnings Report
Analyst Forecast
News Coverage
Gap Up
ULCC
Frontier Group
3.7457 of 5 stars
$3.05
-3.8%
$6.11
+100.4%
-49.2%$693.11M$3.78B8.476,470Upcoming Earnings
News Coverage

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This page (NYSE:LUV) was last updated on 4/25/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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