JetBlue Airways Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of passenger airline JetBlue Airways (NAS: JBLU) fell out of the sky on Wednesday, dropping as much as 10.4% on above-average trading volume.

So what: The former Stock Advisor recommendation just released traffic stats for July, and they paint a far from perfect picture: Traffic increased slower than the available seat miles as the load factor deceased by 0.3%. Worse, the number of revenue-bearing passengers rose even slower than those seat miles.

Now what: The report came on the heels of a sudden 8% climb to close out Tuesday trading (just like every other airline on the market). But JetBlue is the only major airline to turn that gain into an overall drop, counting from Tuesday at 3:45 p.m.: US Airways Group (NYS: LCC) held on to a 4% gain, Southwest Airlines (NYS: LUV) is up by 3%, and Delta Airlines (NYS: DAL) gained nearly 2%. That's in spite of the fact that some of these rivals reported worse traffic figures than JetBlue did; perhaps airline investors are expecting more from the fastest-growing route network in the country.

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At the time thisarticle was published Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Southwest Airlines. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors.

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