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NEW YORKaccidentgamedownload, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Airport passenger data suggest that it is now the busiest summer season ever in the United Statesaccidentgamedownload, yet U.S. airline stocks are down roughly 40 percent over five years with carriers reporting narrower profit margins, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Monday.

"Budget operators such as Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines offer the most painful examples," said the report. These airlines were "poised to take market share from legacy players as the industry emerged from the COVID-19 crisis." Instead, "they are struggling to stay airborne."

Being low-cost is hard when costs aren't low. Today, the price of an oil barrel hovers around 80 U.S. dollars, compared with about 55 dollars before the pandemic. Other expenses have surged too, it noted.

"Shortages of pilots and cabin crew have pushed up wages, while weather events and a dearth of air-traffic controllers have led to costly operational disruptions," it said. "Problems with engines and aircraft deliveries have grounded planes, increased maintenance bills and slowed the introduction of more fuel-efficient models."

While video conferences haven't made business trips redundant and airlines have been reporting higher company bookings for a couple of years now, actual spending on corporate travel has hit a wall, it said. The U.S. Travel Association predicted that it will be 13 percent lower this year than in 2019.

"The bigger issue, however, is that airlines have forgotten the lessons learned before the pandemic and have taken hot tourism demand as a signal to expand aggressively," said the report, adding that "overcapacity is a bigger problem for U.S. airlines, which explains their worse performance."■