Investors must have been pretty happy about airline stock United Airlines (UAL) and its proactive nature today. United shut down flights to New Delhi after a new conflict broke out between India and Pakistan, and a turf war with American Airlines (AAL) in airports was met with a motion to intervene in court. Investors sent shares surging as a result, up nearly 4% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
As a result of India’s Operation Sindoor, which saw nine locations hit in Pakistan, United Airlines shut down a flight to New Delhi on Wednesday, though at the time, the shutdown was just for the day. At the time, it revealed that it would “…monitor the situation and take calls on future flights as more information becomes available,” reports noted.
Indeed, several airlines followed suit, and before all was said and done, around 140 flights had been shut down both into and out of the Delhi airport. Reports noted that 65 arrivals had been called off, as had 66 departures, along with two international departures and two international arrivals.
Chicago Turf War
Normally the thought of a turf war in Chicago brings to mind Al Capone. But this time, it was United and American going at it, as American Airlines filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago over gate allocation numbers at O’Hare International Airport. But United declared the lawsuit “meritless” and even filed a motion to intervene.
United noted that American has been “ignoring Chicago for years,” reports noted. Meanwhile, United has been very kind to Chicago, and thus merits an increased number of gates. American, meanwhile, is playing catch-up, United noted, and the lawsuit is little more than “…an attempt to compensate for its lack of investment at the airport.”
Is United Airlines a Buy, Sell or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on UAL stock based on 13 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 43.51% rally in its share price over the past year, the average UAL price target of $97.79 per share implies 28.23% upside potential.
