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Despite opening the year with a door plug blowout whose fallout reverberated throughout the industry, U.S. airlines had a pretty good year in the stock market. Bloomberg reports that the S&P Supercomposite Airlines index rose 57% this year, beating the S&P 500 by more than 30 percentage points — the biggest such gap in a decade.

The year had some particularly big Wall Street flops among carriers, with the now-bankrupt Spirit Airlines coming to mind. Its shares were delisted by the New York Stock Exchange and now trade among so-called penny stocks ; they have lost nearly all their value. But after that late-in-the-year hiccup, various airlines have been upgrading their internal forecasts and pointing to an acceleration in customer demand.

One name in particular has had an especially good 2024. United Airlines ( UAL ), which competes with Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) as the preeminent domestic name in the space — the two companies are dueling to see who can build the country’s biggest airport lounge — has seen its stock rise nearly 140%. When a so-called “capacity crisis” of unsold seats depressed airfares, United told investors that it saw the headwind coming and cut down on supply in order to turn the situation into a major tailwind .

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