Shorts Raise Bets on Declining Air France Traffic

Air France-KLM (AKH) posted another month of declining passenger traffic, joining British Airways. Shares in Air France-KLM fell 2.1% yesterday on the news that this was the sixth consecutive month where passenger numbers were down. The number of passengers carried fell 7% to 6.4 million and the load factor, a measure of how full an airline's planes are, slipped to 80.3% from 81.4%.

The short base for Air France-KLM (as measured by Percent Shares Outstanding on Loan) has risen 22% over the past month and now stands at 9.07% below the 52 Week high of 10.58% which was hit on June 24th 2009. The short base for Air France-KLM is higher than other European airline companies; British Airways (5.5%), Deutsche Lufthansa (2.7%) and Austrian Airlines (0.1%).

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Comments

[David White:]

All you say is true. The airlines in general have been hit by the recession, higher oil prices, and the swine flu (H1N1). Oil is now falling. It remains to be seen how far it will go, or how long it will stay lower. No doubt lower oil prices would have a positive effect on airline profits. Next it looks like biotech developers will have the swine flu vaccine ready for the normal flu season flu shots in the fall (I think I'll get one). This should do a lot to solve the swine flu pandemic. It should also help air carriers. I know I have wanted to avoid air travel since they first announced the possibility of a swine flu pandemic. The vaccine availability should help air carriers.These two factors make me think a short squeeze could be in the future for air carriers.

In near term opposition to the short squeeze is the recent overall downturn in the markets. This looks like it might go on for some time, although some are pegging mid-July as the likely end of it???

My overall thinking is to stay away from the air carrier stocks at this time. There are major problem resolutions that may be on the near term horizon. There are still major problems. I don't want to be caught with positions in these stocks in the wrong direction. The fundamentals just don't back up either case sufficiently.

Jul 08 03:18 PM