As a long-term investor, one of the phrases that is music to your ears is the focus is for stability in the next year. If there is stability, that means as an investor you have to do less or monitor your investments as you go about your normal life. In all industries there are non-stable events and they affect companies in different ways. Sometimes the non-stable events allows the company to rally its employees and suppliers to make the non-stable event back to normal. These events take extra logistics but sometimes moral is higher because of the accomplishments that were achieved.

In an article by Joanna Plucinska of Reuters, the airline industry profits are forecasted to be stable in 2024 according to the industry group IATA.

The global airline sector has largely recovered from the COVID pandemic and airlines became profitable in 2023 with net profit of $23.3 billion on a 2.6% margin. The IATA or International Air Transport Association believes profits will increase to $25.7 billion on a 2.7% margin.

The global airline industry is set to have $964 billion in revenues. The money will come from the 4.7 billion people flying as compared to the 4.5 billion in 2019.

In China, international traffic is down 40% from COVID levels.

Jet fuel prices are expected to account for 31% of airline operating costs.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, hopefully your dividends allow you to fly and be one of the 4.7 fellow flyers. If yes, the airports are crowded but the time saved by flying is significant particularly in you fly from coast to coast. As a long-term investor, you want the opportunity to buy stocks when they are out of favor or low in price and move higher as the economy improves but you are always looking for stable markets which allow for good margins and continuing profitability for your investments.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.