Corporate resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the airline industry

This study investigates whether airline firm characteristics moderate the negative impact of rising COVID19 confirmed cases on airlines' stock. 87 listed airlines in 44 countries during 2020 are examined with a panel regression. The findings indicate that airline firm size and the number of destination countries reduce the negative effect of the pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 and firm size are significant only during the early stage of the pandemic due to high uncertainty. While the impact of COVID-19 is significant in the U.S. and other regions, it is not the case in China. In addition, the pandemic has had a greater impact on low-cost airlines than on full-service airlines. The study relates the findings to the size advantages and the benefit of diversification. While mergers and acquisitions are a promising business strategy for survival, governments and regulators are necessary to balance the market power of survival and new entrants in the future.(c) 2023 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Korean Association of Shipping and Logistics, Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).