Airline Stocks getting a boost (LUV, JBLU, LCC)

Airline Stocks including JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU), Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV), and US Airways Group, Inc. (NYSE:LCC) are all up today.

The Airline sector, which fell last Friday on the "Dubai Scare", have turned around and are now gapping up nicely.

There isn't much news to report on the sector, other than speculation that the Airlines could turn profitable in 2010.

Boeing Co. (BA) expects airlines to return to profitability in 2011 and demand for aircraft to pick up in 2012, a senior executive said Friday.

Boeing Vice President of marketing for commercial planes, Randy Tinseth, said at the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines conference in Singapore that Boeing is currently focused on clearing the order backlog of 3,400 aircraft.

"2010 will be a year of economic recovery, 2011 airlines will return to profitability and 2012 we will see increased demand for new aircraft to replace older ones," he said.

The executive also said that the Asia-Pacific region will drive the aviation industry's growth going forward, noting that the region in the next 20 years will see its air traffic grow 6.5% every year and require close to 9,000 planes valued at US$1.1 trillion in total during the period.

"Asia-Pacific is the largest market for new airplanes in terms of units and market value," Tinseth said.