It’s possible that Delta Airlines (NASDAQ:DAL) just said the quiet part out loud and admitted that the Olympics represent a huge chunk of lost revenue for the company. How huge? Nine figures worth. That sent shares of the airline down nearly 3% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
While the Olympics is commonly regarded as a tourism grand slam, for Delta, it’s actually a major loss. Normally, 40 million tourists hit the City of Lights—Paris, in case you’re not familiar—annually, but with the Olympics in play, many of them are much less interested in making the trip. The Paris Olympics are actually rendering many common Parisian attractions like the River Seine unavailable.
And with those tourists deciding not to go—and not going to the Olympics, either—that means about $100 million in lost revenue for Delta. Business travel is still in play, Delta acknowledges, but that’s not enough to offset the loss of normal recreational tourism.
Trouble with Palestinian Flag Pins
The loss of nine figures’ worth of revenue would be tough enough to take by itself, but it only got worse for Delta, who issued an apology over Palestinian flag pins worn by flight attendants on one flight. Delta took to X to sympathize with a user who complained about the attendants’ choice of badging but later retracted the sympathy, declaring it “…not in line with our values.”
Interestingly, the first post on X declared that the wearing of the Palestinian flight pins was not in line with its values. Delta noted, “Our employees reflect our culture, and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.” However, Delta subsequently found this response to also be outside of its values. As a result, it removed the employee who wrote the response from social media management and “counseled” them.
Is Delta a Good Stock to Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on DAL stock based on 11 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 7.68% loss in its share price over the past year, the average DAL price target of $63.25 per share implies 44.67% upside potential.
