Airline stocks rise as daily travelers reach highest level since before the pandemic

Share of airline companies enjoyed a broad rally Monday, boosted by data showing the most people flew on Sunday since before the pandemic, and by the rally in the broader stock market. The U.S. Global Jets ETF JETS, +2.02% climbed 1.5% in morning trading, while the S&P 500 SPX, +2.69% jumped 2.6%. Among the Jets ETF’s more-active U.S. based carriers, shares of American Airlines Group Inc. AAL, +0.24% rose 0.5%, Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL, +0.38% tacked on 0.2% and United Airlines Holdings Inc. UAL, +1.06% rose 0.7%. Elsewhere, shares of aerospace giant Boeing Co.’s stock BA, +2.04% rose 0.3%. Data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) showed that 2.495 million travelers went through TSA checkpoints on Sunday, which is just above the previous 2022 high of 2.490 million on July 1, and the most since Feb. 11, 2020, which was exactly one month before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. In comparison, the fewest daily travelers post-pandemic was 87,534 on April 12, 2022. And in 2019, there were 116 days of more travelers than Sunday, while the average for that year was 2.306 million.