United Airlines reports 3Q operating profit - clear weather ahead
21 Oct 2009
United Airlines parent UAL Corp has reported a $57 million net loss for the third quarter, a vast improvement over the net loss of $792 million reported in the year-ago period. According to chairman, president and CEO, Glenn Tilton the carrier is "poised to see better year-over-year unit revenue performance as economies begin to recover and business travel returns."
Operating revenue plunged 20.3% to $4.43 billion in the 2009 third quarter against a 28.3% cut in expenses to $4.35 billion. This allows the company to report an $88 million operating profit as compared to a $491 million loss in the third quarter of 2008.
CFO Kathryn Mikells said yesterday that UAL expects to realize $350 million in cost reductions this year, which was a little more than $50 million over what it had anticipated at the end of June. "We have made significant progress relative to last year . . . generating what we believe will again be leading cost control among our peers, reducing our mainline unit costs even as we reduce capacity," she said.
Load factor rose 2.5 points to 84.9%.
A nine-month net loss of $411 million was also a vast improvement over a $4.08 billion loss through the first nine months of 2008. An operating loss of $87 million was also an improvement over the $3.63 billion reported last year.
