Financial Survey: SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) vs. Air France-KLM (OTC:AFLYY)

Air France-KLM (OTC:AFLYY) and SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) are both mid-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.9% of Air France-KLM shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.3% of SkyWest shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of SkyWest shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Air France-KLM and SkyWest”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Air France-KLM	$32.49 billion	0.07	$1.01 billion	$0.11	7.89
SkyWest	$3.53 billion	1.04	$322.96 million	$7.77	11.58

Air France-KLM has higher revenue and earnings than SkyWest. Air France-KLM is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SkyWest, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Air France-KLM has a beta of 1.58, indicating that its share price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SkyWest has a beta of 2, indicating that its share price is 100% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Air France-KLM and SkyWest, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Air France-KLM	0	1	0	0	2.00
SkyWest	0	2	2	0	2.50

SkyWest has a consensus target price of $108.50, indicating a potential upside of 20.63%. Given SkyWest’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe SkyWest is more favorable than Air France-KLM.

Profitability

This table compares Air France-KLM and SkyWest’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Air France-KLM	0.39%	19.62%	0.34%
SkyWest	9.15%	14.17%	4.61%

Summary

SkyWest beats Air France-KLM on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Air France-KLM

AIR FRANCE-KLM is an airline company. The Company’s core business is passenger transport, cargo transport, and aircraft maintenance services. The Group is the world leader in terms of international passenger traffic; and its cargo activity (not including integrators) and is one of the world’s major maintenance service providers. The Group structure is simple: a holding company with two airline subsidiaries. Air France-KLM has established a set of clearly defined commitments to ensure that its strategy of profitable growth goes hand in hand with environmental quality and social progress.

About SkyWest

SkyWest, Inc. is the holding company for two scheduled passenger airline operations and an aircraft leasing company. SkyWest’s airline companies provide commercial air service in cities throughout North America with nearly 3,000 daily flights carrying more than 53 million passengers annually. SkyWest Airlines operates through partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. ExpressJet Airlines operates through partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. Based in St. George, Utah, SkyWest employs nearly 17,000 employees.