Buy This, Not That: Five Reasons One Airline Beats Its Biggest Rival

Shah Gilani|November 12, 2025

With air traffic controllers about to get back on the job, it’s time to check in on the airline sector.

Two major carriers just posted their quarterly results… and the contrast couldn’t be starker.

One airline’s earnings fell 1.7% year over year. The other’s soared 11.4%.

And check this out: The winner is still down 10% from its highs, while the loser is trading near peak levels.

That gap creates a serious opportunity.

In today’s Buy This, Not That, I break down five key metrics that reveal which airline stock has real upside – and which one is tapped out.

Click on the thumbnail below to see which carrier wins.

Transcript

Hey, everybody. Shah Gilani here with your weekly BTNT, as in Buy This, Not That.

The government is supposedly reopening soon. Air traffic controllers should soon get back on the job. Maybe flights will be less delayed soon. That’s why I want to look at Delta Air Lines (DAL) and United Airlines (UA) today.

I’m going to start with the charts because it’s always important to take a look.

You’re going to notice here in the charts, and first up is going to be United Airlines, the charts are going to look pretty similar. I’m going to give you a side-by-side comparison as I pull up both charts.

I’m going to start with United Airlines. This is a $31.12 billion market cap. Delta – a little over $38 billion market cap. So I’m giving you side-by-side comparisons.

Revenue, pretty similar. United Airlines, $58.37 billion annual revenue. And for Delta, $62.92B. There’s a nice little bit of a difference in the profit margins.

United Airlines’ profit margin comes in to 5.64%, while Delta’s comes in at 7.36%. So there you’ve had a good look at United, and you notice we’re up here and we’re not too far from these highs, which the stock had on January 22 of this year, 2025. So now, let’s take a look at Delta.

You’ll notice that the charts look pretty similar, except Delta’s got further to go before it gets back up to its highs.

Continuing the comparison, and here’s where it gets interesting for me and for you. The quarterly revenue growth year over year for United is 2.6%. Quarterly revenue growth for Delta, which I have up on the chart, is 6.4%, considerably higher. But more interesting, the quarterly earnings growth year over year.

For United, negative 1.7%, while quarterly earnings growth for Delta is 11.4% positive. So Delta looking a lot better. Now, year to date, I go with 52-week. Fifty-two-week Delta is down 10.3.

Call it 10.43%, roughly a percent there at 52 weeks, while United Airlines is actually up in the last 52 weeks, 5.76%. So given the fact that they’re similar, but Delta certainly gets the edge as far as their balance sheets go. They’re both pretty tight.

But Delta gets the edge in terms of earnings growth, in terms of revenue growth, in terms of profit margin, and in terms of overall revenue. Yes, and you get a small dividend yield, about 1.3% with Delta.

So yeah, I’m going to say Delta over United, because I think if one of these stocks gets a pop, it’s going to be Delta because it’s got a little more to go as far as getting back to its old highs, which means you can have a little better return on a Delta trade versus United Airlines trade.

So when it comes to DAL versus UAL, I’m going with DAL, Delta Air Lines.

Catch you guys next week. Cheers.