Mr Joyce please return half your $23m salary, page-135

Hi all,

Good share price movement today, which is partly explained by Goldman Sachs upgrade (from hold to buy). I am citing from their report.

Risks to Australian domestic reopening diminishing; government actions suggest timing could occur pre-Christmas
We have become more confident that a re-opening of Australian domestic aviation markets will occur pre-Christmas given: (i) the alignment of the rates of community transmission across the Australia states; (ii) recent moves to relax border restrictions; and (iii) the introduction of tourism stimulus, all ahead of the critical summer holiday period. We expect a staggered approach to the re-opening of the Australian states starting with NSW, and the formation of a limited trans-Tasman bubble from December.

NZ experience suggests pent-up demand will deliver a solid recovery profile
In order to model the magnitude of the recovery, we draw on the NZ domestic market experience which has shown a solid recovery in domestic activity to c.70% of pre-covid levels, led by (i) solid elastic demand for leisure travel; (ii) supplemented by a 65-70% recovery in corporate travel; (iii) positive reception to sale events; (iv) facilitating good load factors and RASK growth.

Prefer Australian domestic exposure; Risk/return on airlines has improved; Buy QAN.AX, SYD.AX
Our overarching view is a preference for Australian exposed stocks, given: (i) the Australian domestic recovery remains in its infancy; and (ii) the stocks are better structured to profitably leverage a domestic market recovery. Further, with our increased confidence in the near term resumption of domestic activity in Australia, we now believe the risk/return balance for airlines is more attractive. We revise our estimates and 12-month target prices across our coverage, we upgrade QAN to Buy from Neutral (TP A$5.28, +30% upside) and reiterate Buy on SYD.AX (TP A$7.02, +19% upside). We remain Sell rated on AIR.NZ (TP NZ$1.34, -4% downside).