Airline Shares Fall (ALK) (JBLU) (AMR) (DAL) (UAUA)

Airline stocks fell sharply during Thursday trading.

The move was in line with the broader market, as the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) was down for the day.

Alaska Air Group Inc. (NYSE: ALK) shares fell over 10% after the airline reported profits much lower than those anticipated by analysts, partly due to higher fuel costs.

JetBlue Airways Corporation (Nasdaq: JBLU), Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL), AMR Corporation (NYSE: AMR) and UAL Corp. (Nasdaq: UAUA), the parent company of United Airlines, all saw their share prices decline for the day.

John Tague, the COO UAL Corp. said, "Revenue improvement will be driven both by stronger yields and load factors, putting substantial pressure on revenue and traffic related costs going into 2010."

Airlines have given positive outlooks for 2010, leading investors to look closer at how the economic recovery is faring, as well as how basics like costs and supply are handled by the airlines.

CreditSights bond analyst Roger King said that, "the issues for this year boil down to higher expected oil prices, continuing upward trends in labor, maintenance and airport costs, security fallout, filling up capacity at higher fares, return of the corporate customer, and the expansion and effectiveness of [joint-venture] consolidation."