Wheels Up Experience (NYSE:UP) and Textron (NYSE:TXT) Head-To-Head Review

Textron (NYSE:TXT) and Wheels Up Experience (NYSE:UP) are both aerospace companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, risk and profitability.

Volatility and Risk

Textron has a beta of 1, suggesting that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Wheels Up Experience has a beta of 2.34, suggesting that its share price is 134% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Textron and Wheels Up Experience, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Textron	0	8	5	0	2.38
Wheels Up Experience	1	0	0	0	1.00

Textron currently has a consensus price target of $96.33, indicating a potential upside of 2.64%. Given Textron’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Textron is more favorable than Wheels Up Experience.

Profitability

This table compares Textron and Wheels Up Experience’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Textron	5.81%	14.16%	6.10%
Wheels Up Experience	-46.59%	N/A	-28.26%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Textron and Wheels Up Experience”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Textron	$13.70 billion	1.21	$824.00 million	$4.55	20.63
Wheels Up Experience	$792.10 million	0.99	-$339.64 million	($0.51)	-2.13

Textron has higher revenue and earnings than Wheels Up Experience. Wheels Up Experience is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Textron, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

86.0% of Textron shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.2% of Wheels Up Experience shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Textron shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Wheels Up Experience shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Textron beats Wheels Up Experience on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Textron

Textron Inc. operates in the aircraft, defense, industrial, and finance businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Textron Aviation, Bell, Textron Systems, Industrial, Textron eAviation, and Finance. The Textron Aviation segment manufactures, sells, and services business jets, turboprop and piston engine aircraft, and military trainer and defense aircraft; and offers maintenance, inspection, and repair services, as well as sells commercial parts. The Bell segment supplies military and commercial helicopters, tiltrotor aircrafts, and related spare parts and services. The Textron Systems segment offers unmanned aircraft systems, electronic systems and solutions, advanced marine crafts, piston aircraft engines, live military air-to-air and air-to-ship training, weapons and related components, and armored and specialty vehicles. The Industrial segment offers blow-molded solutions, including conventional plastic fuel tanks and pressurized fuel tanks for hybrid vehicle applications, clear-vision systems, plastic tanks for catalytic reduction systems, and battery housing systems for use in electric vehicles primarily to automobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs); and golf cars, off-road utility vehicles, powersports products, light transportation vehicles, aviation ground support equipment, professional turf-maintenance equipment, and turf-care vehicles to golf courses and resorts, government agencies and municipalities, consumers, outdoor enthusiasts, and commercial and industrial users. The Textron eAviation segment manufactures and sells light aircraft and gliders with electric and combustion engines; and provides other research and development initiatives related to sustainable aviation solutions. The Finance segment offers financing services to purchase new and pre-owned aviation aircraft and Bell helicopters. Textron Inc. was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.

About Wheels Up Experience

Wheels Up Experience Inc. provides private aviation services in the United States and internationally. The company offers Wheels Up Membership program that consists of two primary membership categories, such as Individual membership for individual and business fliers; and UP for Business membership consists of small and medium enterprise, and custom enterprise solutions for business fliers that tend to spend at higher levels. Its Wheels Up Charter provides charter flight services for passenger groups, sports teams, global corporate events, and tour operations, as well as global passenger, cargo, emergency, and government services. In addition, the company offers wholesale charter services; group charter and cargo flights; maintenance, repair, and operations services; fixed-base operator services; safety and security services; and government, defense, emergency, and medical transport missions. It serves individuals, small and medium enterprises, and corporate customers. As of December 31, 2024, the company operated a fleet of 154 owned and leased aircraft. Wheels Up Experience Inc. was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Chamblee, Georgia.