The pressure is on American Airlines to issue strong results and a strong outlook on Thursday, especially after United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby proclaimed Wednesday that “We are the best airline in the history of aviation.”

Kirby spoke on United’s January earnings call after the carrier beat analyst expectations for the first quarter and projected strong growth. CFO Mike Leskinen noted that United was the fourth best performing stock in the 2024 S&P 500, with shares up 135%.

So far in 2025, United and Delta shares have outperformed American’s: Curiously, the best performer among the airlines has been Frontier. Year-to-date, through midday Wednesday, Frontier shares were up about 18%, Delta and United are up about 15% and American is up about 9%.

An industry theme for the past few years has been that United is challenging Delta to be recognized as the best carrier, a judgement that has been based on the ability to attract premium customers as well as margin performance. (All of the big three carriers say that their on-time performance is best.)

On the United call, executives continued to recognize that they still need to close the margin gap with Delta.

In the fourth quarter, United reported 9.7% adjusted pre-tax margin, while Delta reported 10.8%. For the full year, United adjusted pre-tax margin was 8.1%, while Delta reported 9.1%. In the third quarter, American reported an adjusted operating margin of 4.7%.

On Thursday, “We’re going to see whether Robert Isom is strong enough to stay on his feet after getting knocked down last year,” said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

“There’s a revenue generation issue and that needs quick repair to catch up to Delta and United margins.”

As for American stock, Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager at Hightower Advisors, called it “the beaten down guy” in a recent interview.

At the time, Link noted that United traded at 9.8 times earnings, Delta at 11.4 times earnings and American at 13 times earnings. “It’s not that I don’t like it,” she said. “But it’s not a really attractive story: Delta is quality and, in a more defensive environment, you want the best in breed. And if United comes down, we can go back in there.”

Link said she would be a buyer “if I wanted to own the beaten down guy.”

As is their practice, United executives made oblique references to American throughout the call.

Kirby referred to carriers who “chase load factor.” He did not name any carriers, but he did say that “All capacity is not created equal” and that United and Delta “tend to add service and route frequency that’s good for customers. We don’t chase it.”

Later Kirby referred to “every airline that has low margins, that doesn’t look like Delta and United” and “has unprofitable capacity.” He also said that all seven United hubs are profitable: can American say the same of its hubs on Thursday?

Meanwhile, Andrew Nocella, United chief commercial officer, spoke to an American strength on the call where he said that United wants to improve connectivity in its hubs. “We’re really focused on building connectivity, particularly in Chicago, Houston and Denver,” he said. “We’re going to be able to close that gap in 2025.”

A recent report by OAG ranks airports by combining two components: the number of available connections and the number of destinations. According to the report, the top five U.S. airports for connectivity are Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte and Denver. In Atlanta, Delta dominates with 75% of flights, while in Dallas and Charlotte, American has 85% and 87% respectively. But United has just 49% of flights in Chicago and 50% in Denver, OAG said.

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