Air Lease Q4 Earnings & Revenues Top Estimates, Improve Year Over Year

Air Lease Corporation (AL) reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings per share of $2.20, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.46 and improved 64.2% year over year owing to higher revenues partially offset by an increase in depreciation expense.

Total revenues of $820.4 million outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $752.1 million and grew 15.1% year over year.

Other Statistics

Revenues from the rental of flight equipment grew 6% year over year to $680 million. The uptick was owing to the continued growth of AL’s fleet and an increase in the company’s portfolio lease yield.

Revenues from aircraft sales, trading activity and other sources grew 90% from the year-ago quarter to $141 million, owing to increased sales activity. AL witnessed $132 million in gains from the sale of 23 aircraft during the fourth quarter.

Operating expenses rose 3.7% year over year to $593.9 million.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, Air Lease owned 490 aircraft with a net book value of $29.1 billion. The total fleet size at the fourth-quarter end was 753 (including the owned fleet of 490, 45 managed fleet and 218 aircraft on order).

Air Lease exited the fourth quarter with $466.41 million in cash and cash equivalents compared with $452.21 million at the prior-quarter end. Debt financing, net of discount and issuance costs, amounted to $19.7 billion at the fourth-quarter end compared with $20.2 billion at the prior-quarter end.

Currently, Air Lease carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Q4 Performances of Other Transportation Companies

Delta Air Lines DAL reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings (excluding 31 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.55 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.53. Earnings decreased 16.22% on a year-over-year basis due to high labor costs.

Revenues in the December-end quarter were $16 billion, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $15.63 billion and increasing 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. Adjusted operating revenues (excluding third-party refinery sales) increased 1.2% year over year to $14.6 billion. Revenue growth was impacted by about 2 points due to the government shutdown, mainly in the domestic segment, consistent with the company's disclosure last month.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (JBHT) reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings of $1.90 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.81 and improved 24.2% year over year.

Total operating revenues of $3.09 billion lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.12 billion and were down 1.6% year over year. JBHT’s fourth-quarter revenue performance was hurt by a 2% and 4% decline in revenue per load excluding fuel surcharge revenue in Intermodal (JBI) and Truckload (JBT), respectively, a 1% decrease in average trucks in Dedicated Contract Services (DCS), and a 7% and 2% decline in load volume in Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS) and JBI, respectively. The decrease in revenue, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, was partially offset by a 15% increase in volume in JBT, a 1% uptick in productivity, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, in DCS, and an increase in revenue per load in ICS. Total operating revenue, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, decreased 2% year over year.

United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL) reported solid fourth-quarter 2025 results wherein the company’s earnings and revenues beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

UAL's fourth-quarter 2025 adjusted earnings per share (excluding 9 cents from non-recurring items) of $3.10 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.98 but declined 4.9% on a year-over-year basis. The reported figure lies within the guided range of $3.00-$3.50.

Operating revenues of $15.4 billion outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate marginally by 0.1% and increased 4.8% year over year. Passenger revenues (which accounted for 90.4% of the top line) increased 4.9% year over year to $13.9 billion. UAL flights transported 45,679 passengers in the fourth quarter, up 3% year over year.

Cargo revenues fell 6% year over year to $490 million. Revenues from other sources rose 9.1% year over year to $981 million.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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