Airlines: Frequent Flyer: Airline Credit Card Spend / Passenger Revenue Correlation Analysis, DAL/Amex Credit Card Enhancement, UAL Doesn’t See Further Airline Consolidation, AAL Pauses Some Domestic Routes Due to Fuel

Research evidence excerpt

Airlines: Frequent Flyer: Airline Credit Card Spend / Passenger Revenue Correlation Analysis, DAL/Amex Credit Card Enhancement, UAL Doesn’t See Further Airline Consolidation, AAL Pauses Some Domestic Routes Due to Fuel

Update

June 9, 2026 04:01 AM GMT

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLCMAirlines | North America Ravi Shanker

Equity Analyst

Frequent Flyer: Airline Credit Ravi.Shanker@morganstanley.comMadison J Pasterchick +1 212 761-6350

Research Associate

Madison.Pasterchick@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-3787

Card Spend / Passenger Nancy Hipp

Nancy.Hipp@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-1311

Revenue Correlation Analysis,

DAL/Amex Credit Card

Enhancement, UAL Doesn’t See Airlines

North America

Industry View AttractiveFurther Airline Consolidation,

AAL Pauses Some Domestic

Routes Due to Fuel

Together with our AlphaWise team we have added credit card

transaction trends to our airlines data interactive. DAL and Amex

expand their credit card benefits, UAL underscores no

expectations for further M&A, and AAL temporarily cancels

some routes due to fuel costs.

Our credit card transaction analysis shows a ~two quarter lead ahead of

reported passenger revenue results. We have added an additional tab in our

interactive dashboard (see here) that tracks both y/y and m/m credit card spend

trends across major U.S. airlines. As part of the validation process, we back-tested

card spend data against reported passenger revenue growth, using data since

2023Q3 to exclude COVID-related distortions. Our analysis indicates that card

spend generally leads reported passenger revenue by ~ two quarters, making it a

potentially useful forward-looking indicator of airline demand and revenue

trends. Among the airlines analyzed, ULCC showed the strongest relationship