US airline, cruise stocks climb as crude oil plunges

JetBlue Airways

Mon 15:02

** Shares of US airlines and cruise operators climb as oil prices slump more than 6% 
** Cruise operators: Carnival Corp CCL.N up 3.4%, Royal Caribbean Group RCL.N gains 2.9%, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings NCLH.N adds 2.1%, and expedition cruise operator Lindblad Expeditions Holdings LIND.O up 1.6%
** Airline stocks gain across the board, led by Allegiant Air ALGT.O up 6.6%, Frontier Airlines ULCC.O up 6.3%, and JetBlue Airways JBLU.O up 5.8%
** United Airlines UAL.O advances 4.2%, American Airlines AAL.O, Alaska Air Group ALK.N and Southwest Airlines LUV.N gain between 3.1% and 3.7%
** Oil LCOc1, CLc1 slides more than 6% on signs of progress in talks to end the US-Israeli war with Iran O/R
** Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had granted the government certain authorities for peace talks
** Fuel is a major operating expense for airlines and cruise operators
** Including session's moves, the S&P Composite 1500 passenger airlines index .SPCOMAIR up about 5% YTD compared with 11.4% gain for S&P 500 .SPX

 (Reporting by Darshan Kumar in Bengaluru)
 ((darshan.kumar@thomsonreuters.com))