The impact of government policy responses on airline stock return during the COVID-19 crisis

This study investigates the impact of government policies on the weekly stock returns of 73 global airline companies in 36 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using panel data estimation techniques with country and week fixed effects, we find that the overall government policies and containment and health policies increase airline stock returns. Economic support policies do not significantly impact the returns. Containment and health policies mitigate the negative effect of the pandemic on airline stock returns, whereas economic support policies strengthen the adverse effect. The government interventions' impact on airline stock returns is heterogeneous based on the headquarters but not on the airline's ownership structures and business operations. Our empirical findings provide salient insights for protecting airline companies by reflecting on which government policy responses are effective and how governments should invest and prioritize policies. The results also present practical implications for airline managers, investors, and policymakers concerned with the current pandemic and future crises.

The nexus between oil and airline stock returns: Does time frequency matter?

This paper investigates the relationship between oil and airline stock returns under different time frequencies. First, we propose an Autoregressive moving average model with mixed frequency exogenous variable to analyse the different impacts of oil on airline stock returns on daily, weekly, and monthly basis. We consistently find a negative oil-airline stock return nexus on a daily basis, but a positive relationship on a weekly basis. While the former supports the economic-based channel, the latter is in line with the market inertia channel. Our findings help explain mixed results reported in the literature. Further, our time frequency connectedness analysis shows that the economic-based channel dominates the market inertia channel since the connectedness is more pronounced in the short-run compared to the medium- and long-run. Our block connectedness results highlight that business models of airline firms can play a significant role in affecting the connectedness, in which the low-cost airlines are more sensitive to the oil price changes. It is worth noting that there are distinguished drivers of the oil-airline stock return nexus in different time frequencies. The drivers also vary between the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results are consistent under a battery of robustness checks and deliver important implications to investors, portfolio managers, and executives of airline firms. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Performance and Risk Profile of Airline Stocks

The COVID-19 outbreak dealt a severe blow to the global economy, especially to the airline industry, due to worldwide lockdown measures implemented by the authorities. This paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline stock performance of seven markets in Asia and three other markets in Australia, Germany and the United States. The data is collected from 42 airline firms from 2019 to 2020. The research outcomes indicate that: (a) COVID-19 only temporarily impacts stock returns;(b) Market values plunge immediately after the first confirmed case, and it still shows no evidence of returning to the price levels before the outbreak;(c) COVID-19 has a significant impact on stock volatility;(d) Most stocks do not illustrate any higher exposure to systematic risks. © 2022, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw. All rights reserved.

The impacts of COVID-19 on the global airline industry: An event study approach.

This study examines the short-term impact of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on 52 listed airline companies around the world by using event study methodology. The results demonstrate that airline stock returns decline more significantly than the market returns after three major COVID-19 announcements were made. Overall, investors react differently during the three selected events. The strongest overreaction is noted in the post-event period of the World Health Organization's and President Trump's official announcements. Moreover, the findings confirm that traders in Western countries are more responsive to recent information than the rest of the world. The findings call for immediate policy designs in order to alleviate the impact of the pandemic in the airline industry around the globe.