A look back at a wild 2024 for U.S. airlines, from doorstops to bankruptcy

It's been another eventful year for air travel in the United States. Just five days into the year, a new door panel nearly exploded Boeing 737 Max, operated by Alaska Airlinesas it departed Portland, Oregon, after sunset, putting the plane manufacturer back into crisis mode and delaying deliveries of new planes by several months.

Two weeks later, a federal judge blocked it JetBlue Airlines“The planned purchase of Spirit Airlines, leaving the smaller, battered carrier to fend for itself. The struggling Spirit eventually filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection In November.

The drama-filled year also included an activist crackdown on one of the country's most cautious airlines, a technology meltdown that stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers during the summer travel peak, and the first major U.S. airline merger since Barack Obama was president.

Federal Aviation Administration Chairman Mike Whitaker He announced that he would step down On January 20, about a year into his five-year term, President-elect Day Donald Trump The important agency that oversees everything from aircraft licensing to U.S. airspace is open again without a leader. Airlines CEOs are demanding more air traffic controllers and investing in air traffic technology.

Meanwhile, airlines have competed over who can be the most “distinctive” and profitable, with cabins closest to the front of the plane becoming more popular purchases for travelers (sorry to those looking for… free upgrades). The top two contenders — Nasir Delta And a competitor united – It brought in most of the industry's profits, and its stock prices hit records, while smaller airlines turned to more spacious seats and advertised higher-quality credit cards.

Airlines played chicken until the industry cut back on the glut of U.S. flights that was bringing down prices. But the boom in international travel, Well in the off seasonshows no signs of slowing down. Through it all, demand for air travel has generally broken records, and CEOs are feeling optimistic about next year, too.

Here's how each will fare in 2024:

The most profitable US airlines struggled to recover from July 19 Crowd Strike The outage took hundreds of Microsoft Offline Windows devices. It has cost Delta Air Lines more than $500 million and left thousands of customers stranded, with a cancellation toll that exceeds all of 2019. However, the carrier's stock price reached a record high this month.

CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC last week that demand looks strong through 2025. The airline is ramping up its premium offerings for higher-paying customers, such as three new Delta One lounges, dedicated to passengers flying in that higher-level cabin that bears its name; New York, Los Angeles and Boston opened this year, with more on the way.

It's a sign of Delta's continued focus on affluent travelers and its “premium” brand, which is similar to Spirit Budget travelhas become such a high end of travel that “Saturday Night Live” fee Martin Short appeared last week playing a Delta employee who blocks actor Paul Rudd from entering the Delta Sky Club, saying his name “sounds bad.”

Delta stopped short of rolling out a lighter business-class product that some analysts expected during its November investor day, but the new lounges could ease crowding at Delta's popular Sky Clubs.

Can he beat Delta? It's not clear whether Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding will be enough to entice more travelers to buy up first class, but United Airlines is making other big moves, like expanding its network to include more premium leisure destinations from Mongolia to Greenland to northern Spain next year to attract customers seeking to travel off the beaten path to traditional U.S. airline destinations.

The carrier has impressed investors with its results this year and has set lofty goals for next year. Its stock has doubled in 2024, becoming the top-performing carrier.

United is introducing newly equipped narrowbody aircraft with new interiors featuring seatback displays and Bluetooth connectivity to its fleet. A. announced Wi-Fi partnership Powered by Elon MuskOwned by SpaceX's Starlink, it will not charge fees for the service, following Delta and JetBlue.

Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby said early in the year that the carrier was not relying on the yet-to-be-certified Boeing 737 Max 10 and would look to more Airbus planes as an alternative, but he threw his support behind the planemaker's new CEO. Kelly Ortberg.

Say goodbye to open seating. The Dallas-based carrier shocked customers — both loyal and frustrated — when it said in July it would begin… Seat allocation It updated its unified cabin to include several rows with additional legroom in an attempt to increase its revenues. This was the carrier's biggest strategic change in nearly half a century of aviation.

While Southwest said it had been working on the changes for months, the carrier announced them after an activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management The company took nearly $2 billion worth of the airline's stock and pushed for changes, including the removal of CEO Bob Jordan. He survived the campaign, despite former CEO and president Gary Kelly agreeing to retire. In a truce, Southwest appointed six new board members in October, including five of Elliott's nominees.

American Airlines He overthrew her Commercial HeadVasu Raja, in May after a sales strategy that ditched travel agencies in favor of selling directly to business travelers backfired and the carrier suddenly cut its sales guidance.

Its forecasts have improved, and executives are optimistic about demand at the end of the year and into 2025. It has signed a new agreement Credit card deal With her partner Cityand will wind things down with its business partner Barclays, which is what remains of American's 2013 merger with US Airways.

Low-budget comedies who love to hate have seen their problems snowball this year, starting with a federal judge ban JetBlue's acquisition of Spirit in January.

After the merger was cancelled, Spirit was left to face its other problems: an increase in labor and other costs after the pandemic, intense competition in domestic markets, a jump in demand for travel to places it does not fly to (such as Italy and Japan), and the discontinuation of Pratt. & Whitney engine recall that had a major impact on Spirit, resulting in the grounding of dozens of its planes.

Bleeding money as the refinancing deadline approached, Spirit filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection Last month, it became the first major U.S. airline to do so since American Airlines in 2011. It expects to debut in the first quarter, and it's an open question whether it will try again to merge with another low-budget carrier. border.

The carrier changed its long-standing business model of charging a low fare and adding fees for everything else, such as seat selection, to offer more bundled options in the summer.

While Spirit saw its shares delisted after filing for bankruptcy, JetBlue moved forward after a judge blocked a planned acquisition with one focus: Reducing costs And return to profitability.

new CEO Joanna Geraghty And former chief commercial officer Marty St. George, who returned to the airline as president in February, embarked on a JetForward strategy, aimed at refocusing the airline, which added a lot of loss-making routes after the pandemic with its premium aircraft. Planes deployed in the wrong places

The carrier announced earlier this month that it would upgrade some of its aircraft with Domestic business classto complement its first-class business class aircraft at Mint.

Its shares were up more than 40% this year through Tuesday's close, leading… Standard & Poor's 500'performance. Investors were pleased with the latest update that showed better-than-expected revenues.

Months later, it returned to focus on its nearly $2 billion takeover of struggling Hawaiian Airlines, a group that passed through antitrust regulators in the summer, marking a major milestone. First merger One of the major US airlines since Alaska bought Virgin America in 2016.

Alaska has posted strong earnings and enjoyed a more than 70% rise in its stock price so far this year, nearly three times the premium compared to the broader market. Executives painted an ambitious picture for investors earlier this month, announcing A Global expansion The combined airline offers nonstop service on widebody aircraft from Seattle — where its biggest competitor is Delta — to Europe and Asia.

First-order boundaries? The carrier is profitable again and is trying to level up, planning to equip its planes with them First class domestic seats.

It also plans to offer more packages that include seat and luggage assignment and no change fees.

CEO Barry Biffle said the airline expects to return to double-digit profit margins in mid-2025, and attributes the recent improvement in results to a series of network changes, such as cutting flying during low-demand days such as Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays and at crowded locations. Markets like Florida and Las Vegas.

Serious travelSunseeker's foray into hotels has faced a difficult period and this summer it said it would undergo a strategic review of its Sunseeker Resort in Florida. She added this fall that she was approaching a capital partner for the property north of Fort Myers.

Main work, low cost Loyal Airlineshas turned a corner, seeing higher demand in peak periods, new CEO Greg Anderson told investors this fall. The carrier updated its guidance for the fourth quarter, which came in ahead of analyst estimates in early December.

With enviable profit margins, especially for a low-cost airline, the carrier benefited from a cargo transportation contract with Amazon Mike Linenberg, an aviation analyst at Deutsche Bank, said this month that competitors were reducing capacity from its main hub in Minneapolis.

“Land of the sun“The company’s revenue diversification provides the company with an economic moat that has allowed the carrier to maintain profitability even during the most volatile and intensely competitive quarters since the pandemic,” he wrote in a Dec. 11 note.

The airline has succeeded in changing its flight schedule with the seasons, and intensifying service to warmer destinations in the winter.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC and NBC, which broadcasts “Saturday Night Live.”