Volaris making a comeback
Mexican carrier Volaris is another airline that underperformed in 2014 but is primed for a comeback. The company is on pace to produce a low-single-digit pre-tax margin this year. The main cause of this poor performance was severe overcapacity in the Mexican air travel market in the first half of 2014.
Fortunately, supply and demand have been coming back into balance. Volaris has contributed to this recently by focusing all of its growth on the U.S. transborder market, where demand is stronger. As a result, its load factor increased year over year by 5.4 percentage points in October and by 7.0 percentage points in November.
This bodes well for Volaris reversing much of the 16.6% unit revenue drop that it experienced in Q4 2014. It will face easy comparisons in the first half of 2015, which should allow it to maintain its momentum.
Adding in the massive drop in jet fuel prices, Volaris has a recipe for boosting its pre-tax margin from the low single digits in 2014 to around 15% in 2015. Volaris is a fairly risky stock due to its inconsistent profitability, but it may well be the top-performing airline stock of 2015.
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