Independent student research — not an investment firm or financial advice
Competitive Comparison
American Airlines vs. Delta Air Lines
A deleveraging turnaround bet against the industry's most consistently profitable operator — the honest gap between the airline I own and the one I don't.
Metric
American Airlines (AAL)
Delta Air Lines (DAL)
PEG ratio
Not disclosed in public data as of this writing
1.11
EV/EBITDA
n/a (EBITDA $3.52B TTM)
9.90–11.20x
Market cap
n/a
$48.27B
Market cap, P/E, PEG, EV/EBITDA, and capex sourced via public filings and financial-data aggregators (GuruFocus, StockAnalysis, company earnings releases), as of July 2026. PEG ratio sourced primarily from GuruFocus where available; different providers use different growth-rate assumptions, so figures elsewhere for the same stock can vary by several multiples. Gold-highlighted column(s) indicate the name(s) actually held in this book.
Why American, not Delta — an honest admission
Delta is, by most measures, the better-run airline: more consistent margins, a stronger balance sheet, and a PEG of 1.11 that reflects real earned credibility with the market. I hold American specifically because it's a lower-cost-basis, higher-risk deleveraging bet — the thesis is that American's debt paydown trajectory as free cash flow improves is where the incremental return sits, not that American is a better business than Delta today. This is a case where the comparison genuinely favors the competitor on quality; I'm holding the riskier name deliberately, sized small, for the specific reason that the deleveraging story is still unpriced relative to a name like Delta that's already earned its premium.