There’s good news and bad news of a sort out for commercial airline leader United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL), but it’s not adding up to anything particularly good for United’s share price. It revealed that, while it’s slowed down on hiring, it’s still adding a pack of jobs to its operations. That odd dichotomy, plus some unpleasant flight conditions for United travelers on a flight that landed in Houston, turned into a loss of over 1.5% in United’s share price.
United is hiring, just not at the pace it was hiring previously. In fact, it’s bringing in about 10,000 new workers over the course of this year alone, which works out to close to a thousand new workers every month. However, that’s quite a bit slower than it was previously, despite a resurging interest in air travel.
United recently shut down pilot classes for May and June but plans to get back into the thick of it starting in July. The biggest reason? Boeing’s (NYSE:BA) recent delivery slowdown after a series of calamities has left United and other airlines in the lurch. Demand, however, is “steady,” according to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, who noted that it hasn’t really changed from what it was a year or two ago.
And Then the Unexplained Illnesses Hit…
It certainly didn’t help when a United flight landed in Texas with around 25 passengers falling ill with what were described as “…flu-like symptoms.” The 25 in question were part of a larger group of 75, which was itself part of the 163 total passengers on the flight. That suggests something that happened before the flight as opposed to during because a substantial number of passengers weren’t hit with any illnesses. Reports suggest that the group had been on a cruise earlier, but which cruise line was unclear at the time.
Is United Airlines a Buy or Sell?
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 7.69% rally in its share price over the past year, the average UAL price target of $68.95 per share implies 32.67% upside potential.
